Aren't we due for a new version of IE?

[Elie]

I often use Internet Explorer but my main Web browser is Mozilla, and IE has been verison 6.02 for the last few years!

What's up with Microsoft? IE still needs major improvements like POPup blocking and all sorts of security enhancements.

Anyone know anything about the new version of IE, if there is one?

Thanks,
Elie

[schmosef]

I attend a fair bit of MS tech seminars (mainly on .Net programming and server integration).

The MS reps are generally very careful about what they reveal of future technology.

Nevertheless, what I've gathered is that Microsoft underestimated the amount of work needed to create a robust platform for just-in-time “windows forms” application deployment over the internet (one of the bigger promises of .Net).

There might be some interim versions of IE but the next major leap forward will be in Longhorn, the next major version of windows, as many of the new features are going to be tightly integrated with the OS.

Then again, a lot of interesting rumours get discussed at the Toronto .Net User Group meetings. I haven’t been to one of those in a while.

[Taz]

Last I read was MS weren't going to be releasing any more stand alone versions of IE, new versions would come only as part of an OS. So I guess the next version will be part of Longhorn

[Admiral]

There are some leaked Longhorn IE builds floating around, those that also include the popup killer.

edit: oh! also, they are supposed to only work with XP and 2003 Server

[Elie]

Thanks guys, then what ever happened to all the lawsuits about integrating the browser with the OS, if you recall system builders wanted a plain OSso they can chose whatever browser they wanted.

Anyway, Longhorn should be around the corner and will look forward to its release.

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Elie

[Admiral]

2006 isn't exactly around the corner.

[Elie]

Sorry I didn't realize Longhorn was that far off from being released, isn't it in beta stage?

Thanks Admiral!

[schmosef]

MS keeps flip flopping on the release date. The latest word is that it is several years away. There’s a lot of speculation that MS is going to release something along the lines of “Windows XP Second Edition”. If they do release XPSE then they’ll be under a lot of pressure to push off Longhorn because of software lifecycle issues.

What’s happening with Longhorn now kind of seems like what happened with NT5/W2K. They had a much hyped list of planned improvements and features in development under the code name “Cairo”. Then, late in the game Bill Gates said that Cairo was to become a general tech initiative and that the next version of Windows would include tech developed through Cairo but wouldn’t actually be Cairo. He admitted that it would take too long if they waited for Cairo to be complete and that this way they could add to and modify the Cairo project without directly impacting the release of the next Windows.

Longhorn is in beta testing at MS. But so was NT5 for a long time before W2K was officially released. The msdn website has articles and developer diaries which elaborate on the new features and how they affect programmers. I just skimmed an article from one developer who was in the process of rewriting solitaire to take better advantage of the features of Longhorn. He said he had it running on his new laptop.

So basically, Longhorn’s release date could be announced next week or next decade.

[The PIT]

I believe it's going to be included in sp2 for xp when that arrives.

[moreau]

I just skimmed an article from one developer who was in the process of rewriting solitaire to take better advantage of the features of Longhorn.

Sorry, that just struck me as funny. With all the effort that goes into the devolopment of a new software product, it just seemed, I don't know, something, that solitaire was in a diary entry.

I just had this image of a frenzied group of programmers huddled around a workstation, mopping sweat off of their forheads as they pored over the solitaire code...

[schmosef]

Well it wasn’t really like that. It was one programmer, and his initiative wasn’t for the official solitaire.

He wrote that he likes to use solitaire as a way to stem off boredom in meetings. When he ran solitaire for the first time on his Longhorn laptop he noticed that it didn’t support a new feature that allowed for scalable UI (I don’t remember the official name). Basically, the cards were too small at his native notebook resolution so he wanted to scale the app to show bigger cards. It didn’t work the way he expected because the card images were raster based bitmaps. So he used this as an example of switching out the bitmaps for “metafiles” that were vector based and would scale smoothly.

It’s funny because I can’t find the article now that I want to link it. Also, I only skimmed the article so I might have confused some details.

[Guru]

Originally posted by The PIT
I believe it's going to be included in sp2 for xp when that arrives.

Yes there is! You can read the article over @ ArsT.