catilley1092
Extraordinary Member
While my years of using Windows products overall has been very positive for the 12 years that I've been a MS customer, sometimes they try to break one off in me.
Whenever I install XP, I always hide IE8 as an update, due to a bad experience I had when IE8 was released. I didn't even want IE8, Microsoft contacted me by email asking me if I wanted to help to "improve" IE. I had no reason to think bad of the issue, so I agreed. Within a few hours, as I recall, Windows Update delivered IE8 to me.
What a horror! IE7 had been running happily, with no problems, IE8 was all problems from the go. Pages loaded slowly, didn't render correctly (the yellow exclamation mark in the lower left corner), it was total crap. Then, when I attempted to remove IE8, even though it had only been installed 1 day, it showed a long list of items that may no longer work properly, if I removed IE8. Scare tactics, but it worked.
I ended up a couple of months later installing Firefox 3.5RC, which was a major release at that time (late spring/early summer 2009). My browsing was faster than ever, running a RC, not even a RTM version. That marked the end of IE for me, even though last year I tried IE9, the bridge was burned. MS themselves contributed to my lack of confidence of IE.
Since then, a few months ago, I switched to Google Chrome, which was faster than Firefox. Not because I didn't like Firefox, but their release cycles were so fast, my addons didn't always work at first. I only have a few essentials, & I expect them to work. Note that I still use FF on Win 2K, as Google seems to have boycotted the OS.
Now the issue at hand. I have already stated that I "hid" IE8 from the update list, whenever I do a new install of XP. Sometimes, I just leave it as IE6, as I only use it for Windows/Microsoft Update.
But this morning, the unexpected happened. When I installed my "important" updates, IE8 was in there, and I didn't see it. Until it was asking me about my default search settings, etc. MS pulled a fast one on me, they should have marked it as an optional update, or better yet, not showed it to me at all, being that I "hid" it upon install. After another "scare tactic", out of all things, I hadn't even used the browser, and never did, it still tried to convince me that a few programs wouldn't work. I'd already been through that in 2009, I called their bluff that time, my programs are fine.
The second time, on XP Pro 64 bit, I caught it. So it wasn't a coincidence. MS plain out screwing their customers, once again. I've got 6 regular installs of various versions of XP, plus at least another 6 virtual installs. One has to go through every single update to make sure that what has been hid, to make sure it doesn't show up again.
So far, I've only attempted to update 3 of my XP installs, all 3 showed IE8 as an "important" update. At least 9 to go. Watch out in your list of important updates, you'll have to "hide" IE8 again, if you don't want it.
Cat
Whenever I install XP, I always hide IE8 as an update, due to a bad experience I had when IE8 was released. I didn't even want IE8, Microsoft contacted me by email asking me if I wanted to help to "improve" IE. I had no reason to think bad of the issue, so I agreed. Within a few hours, as I recall, Windows Update delivered IE8 to me.
What a horror! IE7 had been running happily, with no problems, IE8 was all problems from the go. Pages loaded slowly, didn't render correctly (the yellow exclamation mark in the lower left corner), it was total crap. Then, when I attempted to remove IE8, even though it had only been installed 1 day, it showed a long list of items that may no longer work properly, if I removed IE8. Scare tactics, but it worked.
I ended up a couple of months later installing Firefox 3.5RC, which was a major release at that time (late spring/early summer 2009). My browsing was faster than ever, running a RC, not even a RTM version. That marked the end of IE for me, even though last year I tried IE9, the bridge was burned. MS themselves contributed to my lack of confidence of IE.
Since then, a few months ago, I switched to Google Chrome, which was faster than Firefox. Not because I didn't like Firefox, but their release cycles were so fast, my addons didn't always work at first. I only have a few essentials, & I expect them to work. Note that I still use FF on Win 2K, as Google seems to have boycotted the OS.
Now the issue at hand. I have already stated that I "hid" IE8 from the update list, whenever I do a new install of XP. Sometimes, I just leave it as IE6, as I only use it for Windows/Microsoft Update.
But this morning, the unexpected happened. When I installed my "important" updates, IE8 was in there, and I didn't see it. Until it was asking me about my default search settings, etc. MS pulled a fast one on me, they should have marked it as an optional update, or better yet, not showed it to me at all, being that I "hid" it upon install. After another "scare tactic", out of all things, I hadn't even used the browser, and never did, it still tried to convince me that a few programs wouldn't work. I'd already been through that in 2009, I called their bluff that time, my programs are fine.
The second time, on XP Pro 64 bit, I caught it. So it wasn't a coincidence. MS plain out screwing their customers, once again. I've got 6 regular installs of various versions of XP, plus at least another 6 virtual installs. One has to go through every single update to make sure that what has been hid, to make sure it doesn't show up again.
So far, I've only attempted to update 3 of my XP installs, all 3 showed IE8 as an "important" update. At least 9 to go. Watch out in your list of important updates, you'll have to "hide" IE8 again, if you don't want it.
Cat
It's 12 years old, supporting it would be ridicule. I much agree with your points on Google Chrome though. My only complaint with Chrome is that once you've got two or three addons, resource usage shoots through the roof, but performance and launch times seen generally unaffected.
