IE7: Install or Block

There are a lot of IT Professionals living under a rock. Some bothered to email me last night, in panic, that IE7 is going to be deployed on their systems without a choice. One guy even asked me to call him on his cell phone because he was powering down the systems in the morning to stop IE7 from automatically rolling out and breaking his LOB. No joke.

Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh. Folks. This stuff is your job. Following this stuff is your occupation. First of all, here is Microsoft’s official statement on why they are making IE7 a full download, for the from under the rock crowd, published on July 26, 2006:

To help customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites. Internet Explorer 7 will be available for users of genuine Windows XP SP2, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, and Windows Server 2003 SP1.

This announcement provides an overview of the delivery process and options available to IT Administrators to prevent delivery of Internet Explorer 7 to their organization through Automatic Updates. Customers wishing to block the delivery of Internet Explorer 7 into their organization should have blocking measures complete by November 1. Distribution of Internet Explore 7 by Automatic Updates will take several months to complete. Microsoft will revise this announcement with more information in the future.

Now, let’s say you want to block IE 7 for whatever reason. Well, Microsoft figured you might. So they published the IE 7 Blocker Toolkit. They even published a FAQ on it. Others have been screaming about it for a while. You can even get a step by step breakdowns from fellow MVP Sandi Hardmeier.

Listen, whether you hate or love Internet Explorer is one thing, thats a personal and professional preference. Ignoring the fact that its coming out, how its coming out, how its being deployed and the fact that you haven’t bothered to test it… is a problem. Please, get on the ball.