A Week With IE7
Monday October 23rd, 2006Installation
Good: Nothing, but it only has to be done onceBad: Requires Windows Genuine Advantage to download, installer much larger than both Opera and Firefox, requires a reboot
The installation procedure is longer and more of a hassle than with other browsers but that's not a significant drawback as you should only have to do it once. The reason for this is that the IE rendering engine is a library that is used by many other applications from Microsoft as well as third parties.
The main thing to remember is to make sure that you're running a supported version of Windows. If you're running Windows XP you should be running Service Pack 2. It's also advisable to make sure that you're fully upto date with patches through Windows update.
Before running the IE7 installer I recommend that you check your machine for viruses and spyware. Windows Defender is a good tool for removing spyware. Once you've removed any viruses or spyware you should then temporarily disable the anti-virus and anti-spyware programmes, this is because the IE7 installer replaces critical system files with newer versions which some anti-virus applications will mistake for malicious activity. Remember to re-enable these when the install is complete.
The install process takes around 15 minutes and will require at least one reboot. Once complete you will be taken to a welcome page that lets you configure the phishing filter and tells you a bit more about the features.