Re: running IE3 and IE4 on the same computer [was: Issue 1: Font-weight and headings]

Art Gillespie wrote:
> 
>  A resounding 'me too'
> 
> I think it falls upon content providers/developers to help drag the user
> forward in this respect.  The 'this site best viewed with a
> fourth-generation browser, please upgrade to either MSIE4 or NN4' campaign
> should start here.  

Microsoft's 4.0 implementation is not even reasonably debugged yet. 

> I realize that it has become passe to tell a user how to
> browse (i.e. resize your window here, set your fonts like this, set your
> monitor gamma at, etc, etc, ad naseum), but simply informing users that
> they're missing out on great content can be an effective way to bring them
> kicking and screaming into the present.  (I remember upgrading to NN2 way
> back when for this very reason)

Recently I made the decision NOT TO upgrade a user's two year old
notebook to a version 4 browser because they are both too slow on my one
year old desktop computer. Two years ago, 12MB was a reasonable amount
of RAM for a notebook. I for one am not going to ask people to upgrade
their two year old computers to view my web pages. Anyone out there have
any realistic computing-power lower-bounds for these things?

As well, both of them want to take over my whole computer. Microsoft's
changes DLLs and OS components all over the place and I do *not* trust
them that these new DLLs will not break old software. I know how hard it
is to maintain that kind of code invariant. I expect you will see some
MAJOR resistance to upgrading to these mammoths. 

Getting back to the subject line: the fact that IE4 cannot be installed
on the same computer as IE3 is a bug, pure and simple. Call it a bug in
Windows, or a bug in IE. It doesn't matter: they are both Microsoft.
Taking away user choice is not a good thing.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Monday, 28 July 1997 17:24:52 UTC