Microsoft Begins New Push to Get IE6 Users to Upgrade
Microsoft Begins New Push to Get IE6 Users to Upgrade
Posted 12/01/2009 at 4:11pm
| by Bart Salisbury
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Windows users are creatures of habit. Once in a groove, it rapidly becomes a rut from which they seem unwilling to escape. Even in the face of upgraded hardware and software, they cling to the ‘tried and true.’ What’s Microsoft got to do to get it’s users to move on?
While Vista wasn’t a given for upgrading, Windows 7 is, yet 69 percent of Windows users are still hunkered down in XP. And the most widely used version of Internet Explorer, at 23.3 percent, is version 6, which uses a crayon as a rendering engine.
Microsoft has decided that something’s got to give. It will be running a campaign between now and June 2010 to convince IE6 users that change can be good. According to Ryan Servatius, senior product manager for Internet Explorer: “What we’re doing with the outreach is help users understand how to protect themselves against social engineering threats that exist and to help people understand how Internet Explorer 8 puts people in control of their own privacy online.” Microsoft, in effect, plans to scare people into upgrading. (And what’s scarier than the threat IE6 poses to children?)
How well this will work is a matter for debate. Marcus Yam, at Tom’s Hardware, suspects it won’t have a big impact, because browsers are tied to operating systems, and that the big challenge won’t be everyday users, but corporate users for whom upgrade costs, even for free software, can be substantial.
Image Credit: Microsoft
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iinweed
December 02, 2009 at 1:45am
/rant
I would be quite happy to upgrade IE, and even XP and get all that supposed additional security, apart from one thing.
They keep changing the user interfaces! take an example in IE - WHY is the URL bar at the top now? I want it back under the menu - I cant even move it! This might seem trivial, but NOT changing the layout surely is even MORE trivial!
I like the user interface I have - I know where everything is - I can change settings without having to resort to the built in help to find a setting that I could find blindfolded with my usual software.
Another thing - don't even get me started on the blurry text that all this wondrous new clear-type causes - switching it off makes things even worse! I have no idea what MS have done, but XP and Office 2003 are a lot clearer on my display than Windows 7 and Office 2007!
If you want me to upgrade for security, then make the upgrade invisible to me after it's done, and I will happily go ahead and do it, but don't move all the on screen menus around, hide my settings, and generally make me have to work at doing things, or I will stick with what I am happy with.
In other words - Give me a tick-box somewhere that lets me revert to Windows 2000/IE6 interface and I will happily upgrade!
/rant
DBsantos77
December 01, 2009 at 6:43pm
Screw IE6, unbelievable how much I hate that browser. Try getting a webpage to look "good" in FF or Opera, just to have IE take a crap on it and hand it back to you. >:I
Oh, and that included commenting the code.
-Santos
knexkid
December 01, 2009 at 5:13pm
My life gets significantly worse whenever I have to use a PC with IE6 on it. But luckily it is usually a rare occasion.
1337Goose
December 01, 2009 at 4:25pm
Phrase of the day:
"And the most widely used version of Internet Explorer, at 23.3 percent, is version 6, which uses a crayon as a rendering engine."
Kudos on that one.
~Goose
nekollx
December 01, 2009 at 6:06pm
I say grow some balls "On XXXXer Xth Microsoft will be discontinuing support for IE6, upgrade to IE7 or 8 to avoid loss of conectivity" then add in a windows update patch that, among other things, puts a kill timer on ie6
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