Microsoft Offers Phone Support For IE 7

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is running a short piece detailing Microsoft's newest step in testing Internet Explorer 7, which just went into Beta 2 yesterday. They're now offering free phone support to U.S., German, and Japanese users who try out the trial software." From the article: "'We believe that IE 7, even at this beta stage, is a significant improvement and we want as many people as possible to try it and use it,' said the browser development team in a post on its blog. 'IE 7 is feature complete and has been through significant compatibility and reliability testing. People (especially technology enthusiasts) will have a good experience with it,' continued the post. Microsoft said the new version addresses some problems affecting banking and news sites. It is also designed to be more secure than the current version, with built-in protection against malicious software and online phishing scams."

ActiveX?

built-in protection against malicious software and online phishing scams.

So are they doing away with ActiveX?

Typical Microsoft Response

I thought the days of Microsoft rushing products in an attempt to maintain market share were over with adoption of the trusted computing model. I guess I was wrong. When I used IE7 last, I found it to be far from completion and could definetly not recommend it to any of my clients or even my friends. I definetly saw some cool features in it, but I do not understand how they can be pushing this as a viable solution for some.

Now that is some title...

I was absolutely sure they mean it will contain a skype-like application, voice chat, internet telephony.

Nope. Support by phone will be available. MSIE won't support a phone.

US, German and Japanese only?

What's the criterion for inclusion in this scheme? Your mother country has to have invaded another sovereign state? ;-)

Re:US, German and Japanese only?

Soon to be available in Latin, Greek and Mongolian...

Re:US, German and Japanese only?

My home country is the fatherland, you insensitive clod!

Improved Windows Update experience

I'm really looking forward to a good experience when running Windows Update experience, since that's all I ever use IE for.

Seems to me...

...that Microsoft is playing catch up these days. It's well aware of the fact that it's lost the confidence of the true "tech-oriented" people and now it hopes to win them back.

What they don't understand is that their business model needs changing. No longer is software that's outdated the moment you release it that has security holes in it left and right that don't have patches going to be tolerated.

We have an open source browser with wide spread web support. I don't care if you have the tabs or not, I'm not going back to find out that you had invested not enough time yet again into security and watching as my box fills with adware.

Let's not forget who is really to blame in this adware thing, and it's MS... Ceasing use of IE has kept my PC free of adware for going on two years now. Don't think I'm going back cuz you made it prettier or add features we already had elsewhere.

fyi: x64 support now there too..

It is good to see that an x64 build is now available with IE7B2.

Shame that as usual the phone support feature is not available in the UK...(not that I really care, FF is fine).

Note that the download link is http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/defa ult.mspx [microsoft.com] (where you can choose your desired poison) as opposed to the one in the stub (which links to the technology overview document).

I am hoping

that we don't start bashing MS for this. Give them credit for beta testing and making sure that the product works and also for providing support to the end-users that try it. This seems like a interesting move on their part and a good effort to make sure that the code they will eventually release is stable. I use many beta products every day and they do not provide me phone support. If gmail craps the bed then I am SOL.

I can image that we will see a lot of people here at /. trashing this for one reason or another. Just don't bash them later for not testing their code.

- Andrew

Neat, less grief for me.

After a lifetime of being everyone's "computer geek" freidn/relative and entertaining the occasional midnight phone call from people saying things like "Help me Rob, I just clicked on the Internet and my email says an instant error message!" I can finally direct some of that love to Microsoft.

Of course, MS probably won't have people install Firefox nearly as often as I do...

Yesterday?

That's what the website says -- released 4/24. Yet I've been using IE7 for a while now, I'm thinking about 6 weeks, and I could have sworn it was Beta 2. In fact, my Help/About box claims that its Beta 2 as well. So is this a rerelease or really version 2.1?

Re:Yesterday?

Could be Beta 2 Preview Release Candidate 1 Service Pack 2.

Dvorak's spin

Love him or hate him, I found a few interesting things to think about in one of his recent commentaries http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1952995,00.as p [pcmag.com]
Summary: MS's biggest problem is IE and they should just dump it.

Bug Catcher?

Could this also be a widescale method of finding potential bugs in the software? When someone calls in they can record the problem and see if other callers are getting similar errors. I just hope it doesn't turn out like the last beta boot software which wouldn't let you boot. If Microsoft is providing support, however, it's probably damn stable (compared to other windows apps).

Free Phone Support

It is offering free telephone support to consumers in the US, Germany and Japan who decide to try it out.

Yes, that's right. You get this lovely tripod with gripping arm, absolutely free with your trial of IE7 Beta. Now, when you are stuck on interminable hold with Microsoft Tech support, you won't have to hold the phone up to your ear -- the Phone Support will do all the work! It frees up your hands so you can send hate mail to Bill Gates while still waiting for the next available tech support specialist.

Obvious criticisms

Asside from obvious criticisms, I think this is an interesting move on Microsoft's part. I remember when the browser wars started. I chose the wrong side. I was excited by Windows95. I was excited that it included TCP/IP and a web browser. I didn't know or really even care about compatibility or specs or any of that stuff. I was a relatively new and unwashed user and I loved Microsoft for all the things in Win95.

With IE7, they seem to be attempting to bring some of that newness back, or maybe it's just my own perspective. In any case, I'm not a new or unwashed user any longer and I have real concerns over vulnerabilities and other annoyances. Will ActiveX remain as the most exploitable part of MSIE and any OS that uses it? Will CSS remain 'broken?' (I shouldn't say broken since that word implies accident and gives the impression that it's unintentional. CSS is incompatible and is intentional sabotage on Microsoft's part against the world of compatibility. In spite of all standards agreed upon, Microsoft in all its power and glory is unwilling to be compatible with the rest of the world.)

Not evil enough

I think the borge icon doesn't reflect the level of evil Microsoft has obtained.

Microsoft IE7 phone support

"Hello, welcome to Microsoft Internet Explorer Seven phone support..."

"Press 1 to be told to reboot, press 2 to be told to reinstall IE7, press 3 to be told to reinstall the OS, press 4 to be told to apply next month's patches to the OS, press 5 to be told to contact the website's administrator for writing non-IE7 compliant HTML, press 8 to purchase Microsoft malware protection services..."

Broken rendering

I'm not a web professional, but I've been given the job of designing a small website for my employers, and IE's crappy CSS support has caused me a world of hurt.I was going to ask whether anything has been done about fixing it, but an earlier post regarding the Acid 2 test has pretty much answered that. (It's a wish list? Well, yeah, but if Konqueror and Safari can grant those wishes, why not IE?)

I suppose the most we can hope for with IE7 is that it stays broken in the same ways as previous versions, so we don't have to learn a whole new raft of ugly hacks just to a get a page to look presentable.

Supported OSs...

Anyone else catch the line:

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000; Windows 95; Windows 98; Windows ME; Windows XP.

I guess there is hope for those that don't want to upgrade their Pentium/133 systems. :-)

Phishing scam protection - MY FOOT !!!

No it does NOT prevent phishing scams, but actually IE actually makes various online hosting providers' anti-phishing filters useless. If someone hosts a text (yeah, .txt) file with HTML, *only* IE renders it as an HTML page.

One of my friends who was drowsy late night after cramming for exams, got phished!!! All fault of IE and partially his (being too drowsy!)... by this site : http://newphotosfamyli.bravehost.com/link2.txt [bravehost.com]

(Yeah, the site is still up after being reported to concerned people! If someone knows this fellow please punch him in the gut for me, thanks!).

More details and comparison of how Opera, Firefox and IE handle this phishing site are in my blog : http://blog.mritunjai.com/2006/04/23/gone-phishing / [mritunjai.com]

Re:Phishing scam protection - MY FOOT !!!

This is really disturbing - Safari renders it as html instead of text as well. Good thing I use Firefox for unknown sites. I need to mention this to other Mac users. Everyone I know has been told about the inherent unsafety of IE, but most people think Safari is safe.

Has anyone tried Konqueror on this site?

Scott Adams Style

"Hello, this is Dogbert's Internet Explorer 7 Helpdesk. How may I destroy you?"

"Please hold while I disconnect, erm, redirect you to the appropriate expert. Sucker!"

No doubt

'We believe that IE 7, even at this beta stage, is a significant improvement and we want as many people as possible to try it and use it,'

That it's a significant improvement to IE 6. What I don't quite get is why it should be a significant improvement to the competition; specifically Opera & Firefox.

In another news...

Microsoft has decided to offer free phone support for Calculator and Solitair.

Why dont they depreciate some of their bloat in IE

Stuff like page transitions, HTML TIME, their own proprietary tags for fancy text shadows, blur and gradiants. I realize a few rare people might use those but I think they could just use open standards instead. So many other programs out their depreciate things over time, why cant they? Thats how Firefox (phoenix) became the lightweight champ it is, it dropped a lot of the bloat Mozilla had.

Will they help me get it running under wine?

nt

Excellent!

I for one welcome our new XHTML/CSS rendering overlords.

Why only -2- other countries?!?

  Who wants an Internet phone toy that only manages to connect you
  to TWO other countries (with no choice of which ones), anyway?!?

  Skype is -my- friend, here!
  Not perfect, but it does all that I want done in the VoIP dep't.

  What about you? Do you think MS will ever catch-up in VoIP?

Still no :before, no application/xhtml+xml

It seems that they're really pulling off the "still no CSS" stunt. Too bad. Also, IE7 still tries to download properly served XHTML. What a failure.

Everything but....

a secure browser? o_O -- Bridget

MSNBC writes IE7 Beta 3 (as in THREE) is out...

...not Beta 2 (as in TWO).
Story here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12477036/ [msn.com]

So, what's the truth? Beta 2 or Beta 3?

Phone support in IE5?

I remember there being phone support in IE5. This one time I was browsing some foreign sites to meet beautiful ladies, and my IE had a warning pop-up that said I needed to be authenticated to proceed. My modem started to dial and mere minutes later, I was finally viewing the pictures and movies that I had wanted to access in the first place.

Sure, this "phone support" was expensive, since I got a $89.22 phone bill for a three-minute call to Bulgaria a month later, but all in all everyone had a great time.

ring ring

Hello? Yes, i'd like some help with my browser please. Yes, well it appears i've caught a virus through it. Right. Right. Patch released next cycle? Some time next month? Great! You've been very helpful.

I tried the IE phone

I kept hearing blue screams of death.

IE 7b2, a UI report

regarding IE7 and its "usability", found this interesting: IE 7b2, a UI report [glazman.org]

BBC Trawler

This is a troll, so you may want to mark it as such, but IMHO the BBC is to technology reviews as gardening magazines are to motor vehicles: The BBC knows only one operating system, and that is Windows, and one software company, and that is Microsoft. When the BBC writes about any computing article, it's usually from the point of view of a Microsoft press release, and their articles on any other piece of computing or technology is usually very suspicious and highly critical.

To be fair, I don't think they are really trolling for MS. I think they simply ask the same reporters to write articles on computing that they ask to write articles on the Queen's birthday.

Mod this down if needed, but think about it, please.

Hello..... Microsoft ??

MS Support: How may i help you ?
IE 7 User: Wheeeeeeee......
MS Support: Sir... ?
IE 7 User: Wheeeeeeee......
Firefox: Shut uppp!!
MS Support: Sir, please refrain from using IE and go see a doctor.
http://www.firefoxflicks.com/flick/?id=19542 [firefoxflicks.com]

the slashdot community is awful

I can't believe what I've been reading here. I don't like IE/windows anymore than the next poster, but give microsoft some credit for actually providing phone support for their pre-release software. This is very simple: it's beta software and you don't have to install it if you don't want to. It's beta software and because it's beta software, MS can put any OS validation scheme they want because they aren't forcing IE7 on users. Of course, they can do it regardless anyway. At this point, what ever they want to do is completely fine. At this point, we don't know what features will be in the final release. Is it safe to assume that the validation scheme will be in the final release? Probably. For now, we have to give them the benifit of the doubt. If the final release does have it, that's when you start giving them hell for it. Hell, the final release could still be beta software but the fact is that we just don't know. I may not be optimistic about vista but since I haven't used it, I don't think that I can say that it's good or bad.

Why not an independently installed program?

What I don't get is why this beta version of MSIE does not install as an independent program that still leaves the previous MSIE version accessible.

Who wants to try a beta test program that completely wipes (or better: hides) the stable version?
How are we supposed to check websites, modify them to work on MSIE 7, and still test for compatability with MSIE 6?

It is not like it is completely impossible. You can quite easily install a .local version of MSIE 7, and it runs, but it fails in some small but critical areas (like the evaluation of [if lt IE 7] conditional comments). It should be possible to compile a version that can be used for a betatest and does not disturb the installed browser.

Maybe the reason for offering phone support is the large number of users that would not install a beta version over a stable version when it is unsupported?

Built in protection from PEBKAC?

"It is also designed to be more secure than the current version, with built-in protection against malicious software and online phishing scams."

(sarcasm)
So, then, how did they manage to stop people (esp PEBKAC) from using it?
(/sarcasm)

Freudian Frasing?

The Word document that is the Technology Overview for this beta indicates IE7 now supports transparent PNG files. These are described as follows: "A PNG is a typographical file format". Hmmm.

Remember, as MicroSoft says, "the software should not be used in mission-critical environments".

Phone support? What phone support?

I called their support line to check on a very simple matter, but the person I spoke to, (granted, this could be a unique occurrence, but I doubt it), politely told me that Microsoft does not give phone support for Betas.

I, in turn, politely pointed out that their IE7 Beta 2 Support site, *specifically* states that consumers, (English speaking ones, in the U.S.), should call in for support if they had any problems or questions.

I don't think this particular Microsoft representative believed me.

I ended the conversation by suggesting that they ought to check on the site itself and correct it, if they didn't want unsuspecting consumers calling them about non-existant support.

We are microsoft.

You will be assimilated.

Re:Acid 2 & install problems.

Until recently, when installing Firefox on a Windows computer, you had to do the uninstall old version / install new version thing to avoid duplicate - and "dead" - entries in the list of installed software.

Depends what you mean by recently.

this blog [blogspot.com] says the issue you're complaining about was fixed over a year ago

Re:Acid 2 & install problems.

//Yeesh! Really? Why do you have to do that?//

Ummm ... maybe because it's BETA SOFTWARE?

"Duh" quotient is up on /. today.

Re:Acid 2 & install problems.

Wow, I'd forgotten how lame installing and un-installing software in Windows is. If I want the latest developer version of Safari (or any program, for that matter), I just drag it to my Applications folder.

Re:Acid 2 & install problems.

Hmm, I just did the acid2 test in both MSIE 7 and Firefox. NEITHER passed it. MS's background is red with a vague happy face shape over on the left side, and although firefox doesn't have the background the image is still all discombobulated.

I've been running beta2 for months now and it actually seems to work better than the previous versions by a long shot. Not nearly as many problems with loading content that has traditionally given IE problems.

The tabbed browsing has a few advantages over firefox's and a few features are yet missing that firefox's tabbed browsing had from it's earliest incarnation. Of course beta 1 of firefox was based off of a heavily tested and proven codebase, and much of IE7 has been a complete rewrite.

It would be nice to right click and "open in new tab" now and then, a feature that is glaringly absent. However I do like the new layout, it took me a while to get used to the fact that the standard button layout was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it, but once I got used to it, it worked well, probably more efficient than my previous surfing experiences. However, there should be an option to use the standard web controls that people have used since the stone age of the world wide web, as my wife, being a neophyte, hates it, and refuses to get used to it. And she cant use firefox on her web applications her work provides because firefox doesn't like cold fusion, so she sort of has to. It would be nice if she could use the familiar interface.

It also seems to load pages much faster than previous versions of IE, and dare I say it *gasp* firefox. One of the first things I tested, out of curiosity. Of course these tests were not scientifically conducted, and results can changed based on connection, and host bandwidth, client bandwidth, etc. etc. but it's competetive in that area.

Prior to downloading the beta, I was getting sick of firefox, and hadn't been having a very good experience with it for a while. Probably because of an extension I loaded or something else completely unrelated to the sacred browser itself, but it seemed to be a resource hog. I have heard there were fixes, and I applied them, but my browsing experience continued to suck. And I was considering buying opera. I figured I'd try ie7 before I went that route since I was considering a change anyway, and so far, nothing has been bad enough to chase me off. I'll continue testing it. However I'll probably still buy opera if they don't add a few features and refine a few they don't already have.

And to the guys at MS, why not make it acid2 compliant? While your at the drawing board, might as well just make the necessary adjustments. One less thing to be critisized over at least, and I doubt it would require huge amounts of sweeping changes.

Re:i hate slashdotting plebs most of the time

you can buy a cordless phone for $5 at the drugstore.. WAKE UP

Re:Feature Complete?

Maybe in the same way that Lieutenant Commander Data is 'fully functional'.

Re:Does "phone support" mean

Wow, some MS fanboy got mod points today. Everything even a little critical of MS is being marked as troll, even questions that are quite reasonable given MS's history of violating privacy in the name of fighting piracy. But -- to answer your question, from what I've heard, IE7 does a validation check, but I haven't heard of it actually phoning home after that.