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IE9 Platform Preview Feedback

Getting specific feedback directly from developers about their experiences with the platform is super important to us. It’s a critical part of how we optimize for real world performance and real world code patterns. This post is about the changes we’re making to our feedback programs in support of broadening and strengthening that feedback loop.

Feedback about Feedback

Your feedback about how we managed developer feedback over the last several releases guided the changes we’re making with IE9.

One of our commitments is to look at every single piece of feedback that we receive. The sheer volume of feedback from IE7 drove much of the design of the IE8 Beta Feedback process. For IE8, we limited the number of people who could file bugs and put no limits on who could vote on bugs. Many of the comments on that process were clear. At the same time, history has shown that users will often submit un-actionable feedback (registration required), large volumes of which significantly reduce our ability to react to high quality feedback (registration required). Some developers asked that we change the tool we use to accept bugs, noting things like the fact that the status and resolution information communicated isn’t always helpful. Below you can see some of the changes we made as a result of this feedback. The specifics of our programs and tools are at the bottom of this blog.

Here are the areas where we’re improving:

  • We want to hear to hear from the entire developer community, so we’re re-opening our feedback programs to all developers.
  • To help you file more actionable bugs, we’ll communicate what type of feedback we are looking for as the release progresses. We will be clear as to what feedback we need when, how it should be formatted, and how we handle that feedback.
  • We are working with the Microsoft Connect team and will make it easier for you to understand the specific status of your bug by adding additional state and resolution information. As we roll out these changes, if you have feedback on the Connect tool itself, we encourage you to let the Microsoft Connect team hear about your experience on the Connect Web Site Improvement site.
  • We’ll provide an integrated experience for diagnosing, troubleshooting, working around, and reporting issues you find. We’re also working with the Microsoft Connect team to enable a more robust community experience within Connect, providing you with more options for interacting with feedback from other users.

You’ll see some of these improvements with the Platform Preview released today. Other improvements will appear with future Platform Preview releases and the IE9 Beta.

How to Provide Feedback

At this stage, with the release of the Internet Explorer Platform Preview, we’re looking for developer feedback on the changes we’re making to the IE platform. As we discuss in the blog post About the Platform Preview, the Platform Preview is a light-weight frame around the IE platform while it’s under construction. It shouldn’t be used for compatibility testing.

Instead, we’d like developers to look at their sites with the Platform Preview and let us know if they have feedback or see issues in the platform. We’re looking for feedback in these areas:

  • Do the new capabilities function as we’ve described them?
  • Do they do what you’d expect?
  • Do you experience reliability or performance issues when using any of them?

In hearing your answers to these questions, we can validate the quality of the features, as well as ensure the additional functionality we deliver meets the quality standards you expect.

We have several tools and channels available to you when you find an issue or have a question. These channels will be available from now through the Beta:

  • IE Public Feedback – Any user with a Windows Live ID can submit feedback and see the bug database. To view or submit bugs, click the Report Issue menu from the Platform Preview, and then click Report an Issue to be taken to the Connect site. Once you register and fill out a short one-time survey, you’ll be able to submit bugs. As mentioned above, if you have any feedback on the Connect tool itself, please let them know using the Connect Web Site Improvement site.
  • IE Tech Feedback Program –Continues the “Tech Beta” program we started with IE8. (The name changes to reflect that we are beginning it pre-Beta.) This includes a select set of users who will validate and refine bugs from the public (in addition to filing their own bugs). If you’d like to volunteer to join this community, please send an e-mail to IESO@microsoft.com, Subject: Pick me for IE Tech Feedback.
  • IE Diagnostics – We’re making the IE Diagnostics tool that we use internally publicly available as part of the Preview. At any time while running the Platform Preview, you can click the Report Issue menu, and then click Run IE Diagnostics. You can use IE Diagnostics to see your IE settings, capture information about your IE installation, and more. We ask that anyone submitting bugs include IE Diagnostics information. You can find more information about IE Diagnostics on the Connect site.
  • IE Pre-Release Newsgroup – The IE Beta Newsgroup has been renamed to the IE Pre-Release Newsgroup. The Pre-Release newsgroup is the all-in-one place to discuss issues related to pre-release IE products.

If you’ve found an issue you want to report, we ask that you do the following:

  1. Read the Release Notes we’ve published bugs on Microsoft Connect and integrated them into our release notes, outlining most of the known issues in our Release Notes at the time of release.
  2. If you don’t find your issue, please look for it at the IE Pre-Release Newsgroup and see if anyone has discussed it there.
  3. See if anyone has already logged the issue by visiting the IE Feedback program on Connect and viewing/searching the bug database. Note: you must register on the Microsoft Connect site and fill out a short survey to search for your issue.
  4. If it’s a new issue, log a bug on Connect according to the instructions there.

We think this will help the discussion we all want to have work better.

Thanks again for all your feedback – we look forward to working with you to make Internet Explorer better!

Justin Saint Clair
Program Manager

Update 3/16/10 5:40pm - Typo correction and updating bug links to indicate the registration is required to view them.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    If this phrase: "Thanks again for all your feedback – we look forward to working with you to make Internet Explorer better!" was truthful, you guys would stop wasting your time trying to make another fail browser, and use webkit instead. If this was true, you would have forced upgrades to machines with IE 6 / 7, don't come with the business c%$p. You guys dodge every mention to Webkit, and now I will have to code for FOUR broken browsers, I hate you all.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    you should check your preview domain and stick a redirect on the root url ;o) http://ie.microsoft.com/ Fail

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    @JustinSC The link to the 'IE Developer Forum' on the homepage of the IE Connection is broken. Is there a bug tracker for the IE bug tracker? It's a little disconcerting, did you really put that page live to thousands of users without checking whether the links were working? This is the kind of thing that doesn't exactly inspire confidence in your team.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I was just getting the hang of IE8. It does seem to be faster.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    using IE Diagnostics to see your IE settings, capture information about your IE installation is awesome!

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    And only now do I realize that I've been debating with a 14 year old "Republican" who dislikes "liberalistic ideas" and wants to convert his dollars to Euros and work for Opera. My apologies.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Is this stuff just going to get taken offline like the previous bug databases?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The preview feels extremely fast but it's lacking some important features like canvas and CSS3. Nobody cars about how fast you've become until you add support for these two things.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Where can we request some things to be changed that are not exactly bugs?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    the 'un-actionable feedback': « When "click to return" at webpage or when "click in link" after return no work. » Hehe, I wonder you even answered. @Seth: It does not like there is will be any Canvas support this time (bet on IE-X), but there IS some CSS3 support.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Oh, by the way: http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2010/03/16/microsoft-letter

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Can you update the UA string to identify as an IE9 developer build?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    @blah Our bug database has been and will remain online - the one change that we have made is that it now requires registration to view/search them.  In terms of remaining open for bug submission, this will depend on where we are in the release cycle.  For example, in preparing our infrastructure for IE9, we disabled submissions for a period of around a month.  We'll be sure to be clear on where we are in the cycle and how that impacts feedback submission, but generally you can expect that our bug DB will always be "online".  Thanks! @DanielHendrycks We'll follow up with a post shortly on submitting feedback that talks about things like asking questions/general requests vs. submitting bugs.  Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    "We'll follow up with a post shortly on submitting feedback that talks about things like asking questions/general requests vs. submitting bugs.  Thanks!" Thank you!

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    What about a free ad blocker? Many FF users wouldn't even consider using IE without a ad-blocker, despite being superior to FF...

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Please conform to "ECMA-262 5th Edition/ December 2009" by IE9.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    I have logged into my connect account with my live id and go to the IE site and all I see is stuff that was postponed from the IE 8 feedback, I do not see any new feedback, Is it open, I can see info in the other connections I am in.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    @ JustinSC [MSFT] > Our bug database (...) now requires registration to view/search them [bug reports]. That is a bad decision in my opinion. An unjustified one. Uncalled. Unexplained. I have personally filed a lot of bug reports which were confirmed, valid, all with reduced testcases, backed with excerpts of W3C specs, many have been postponed and now I can not view my own bug reports and visitors can not view these or any unless they register. Why?? Gérard Talbot

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    One of the biggest issues with Connect for IE bugs was the lack of ability to post test cases that other users could test (or provide refined test cases for) and thus quantify by reporting if they could duplicate the bug or indicate constraints or conditions under which it occurs. I sincerely hope that this is fixed in the latest version of Connect as I have no intention of using it until this has been fixed.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Please support XPSP3. Remember there are developers too that develop on XP, not just users.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Never mind I will sequence IE9 on Windows 7 or Vista using App-V and deploy it on XP using the App-V client using the server-less MSI method.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Your link to the published bugs on microsoft connect does not work correctly wether I am logged in with my live id or not. Please fix this

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Laughable... really XP has 60%+ share, IE9 will do nothing to change the fact IE 6/7/8 will be around for years, HTML5 is going to come to us by the end of 2022. You fail gain microsoft

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    @Will: Stay tuned to the IEBlog for news about the IE9 UA. At the moment, you can check the document.documentMode or look at the ScriptEngineMajorVersion value. @Guido Tapia: No one from Microsoft has made any such statement. Speculative comments about IE's feature plans should be considered as speculation only.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    How I can give "Feedback" ? If the Platform Preview don't support XP SP3...

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    IE team, looks like you do not realize what you are doing. Windows XP support is critical not optional. Not supporting Windows XP just for driving Windows 7 sales would make IE usage share plummet in the long run.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    And thank you Microsoft for stopping XP support. It's a real pain to develop for that ancient OS.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Except for GPU acceleration, IE9 seems to have innumerable other improvements. Windows XP is your most popular Windows operating system, Microsoft. IE7 on XP didn't support certain features like Protected Mode, IPv6 and TLS 1.2 etc but Vista/Windows 7 versions support it. In the best interest of hundreds of millions of Windows XP users, why can't IE9 on Windows XP continue to use GDI or use Direct3D and ship with the rendering side improvements. This decision is neither helping developers, nor users. If everyone gets on to IE9, there will be lesser IE versions for us to test. Hope Microsoft gives this a second thought. This is the only bad news. Rest is all good.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The question to be asked here is that why there is no support for the Windows XP operating system, when it is still being so widely used? HTML5, 2D accelerated graphics, and a never before seen JavaScript engine are all good but why have Microsoft missed out on a trick in its quest to regain the top-spot again?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    all the others browsers support XP. except IE9. Epic Fail ?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    http://www.codedread.com/blog/archives/2010/03/16/a-long-road-behind-a-long-road-ahead/

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    It's a failure to not support XP. It still has the largest market share. Supporting XP with hardware acceleration would be possible, you just don't want to.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    It looks like the IE team is finally listening - first PNG, then CSS + more standards, faster JavaScript, SVG (finally!). Let's hope that this continues - after all IE6 was once the best browser until you decided to neglect it. So keep listening, improving and you will eventually be respected among web developers for actually delivering a good browser. BTW: canvas is missing!

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    If you're  a developer using XP (like I am), I guess the solution is to use '<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8"/>'. That's a real pity, especially if it means missing out on the improved performance, but it's understandable that Microsoft wouldn't want to develop for such an old version of windows. But it does mean that IE8 will be around for a long time. Looks like it's going to be the new IE6. Personally, I'd like to see complete support for existing features before dealing with canvas. Implementing ES5 in its entirety (eg.dealing with http://twitter.com/kangax/status/10591361227) should be an easier and more pressing task than implementing canvas.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Sounds good.. Hope we can enjoy all the features from this new IE 9 version :)

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Will APNG be supported in IE9?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Man you have taken over a hard job. Finally having copied all the features from the other browsers, but forgotten one point. The other browsers are already available. IE9 is not, IE6 is the standard browser of your windows corporate users. But with all this things there is something that takes year: IE has a bad reputation. IMHO IE 4 was the only good version so far, for the time it was living.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Wow ! Something have changed inside Microsoft for sure ! Great to see !

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Microsoft you are committing planned obsolescence instead of naturally letting the product die out as users upgrade and migrate. With such a gargantuan number of XP users, targeting only 25% of your Windows customers is not only foolish but cruel as well. See my opinion here: http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2010/03/internet-explorer-9-wont-work-on.html

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    I loved Internet Explorer and was a loyal user in spite of it not being fully standards compliant compared to the competition. Sadly, this is the end of the road for me on IE with Microsoft dropping Windows XP support. I am switching to a more standards compliant browser on Windows XP SP3. Firefox, Safari or Chrome. Really so many choices.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The published MS Virtual PC images provided for IE debugging and development: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en Only contain a Vista SP1 image.  Thus any developer on XP can't even emulate what IE9 would be like. Please consider publishing a Vista SP2 and/or Windows 7 image so that developers can test and prepare for IE9. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Please provide a Mac and Linux version, all other big browsers (Safari, Firefox, Chrome) are cross platform, there is no excuse for IE to be Windows-only. If the rest of the world can do it, surely the biggest and most powerful software company in the world can too.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    Will there be a version of IE9 that runs on XP?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    I can't post any bug on the connect site. I have acess to it, I can see my old reports, but I can't publish any new one. Is that normal ?

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    sorry XP users, IE9 Platform Preview requires minimum Vista SP2.  that doesn't surprise me one bit.  get over it, Artificialaxe & Vikram. read Release Notes of IE9 Platform Preview here: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/info/ReleaseNotes/Default.html "System Requirements Internet Explorer Platform Preview requires Windows 7 (x86 or x64) or Windows Vista SP2 (x86 or x64). For Vista users, Windows Internet Explorer 8 and DirectX 2D (D2D) must be installed on your system. If you’re not already running Internet Explorer 8, download and install it first. Then install DirectX 2D by installing the Platform Update for Windows Vista, available on Windows Update." so there are NO plans whatsoever for an XP version of IE9.

  • Anonymous
    March 16, 2010
    IE9 also fluctuates between 29 to 51 fps in the flying images test on Windows 7 with NVIDIA WDDM 1.1 driver but Opera 10.5 manages to render on XP SP3 at 62 fps. I hate planned obsolescence of commercial software.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @Mike & @Tom Stack Most user registered on Connect are seeing the bugs, but a few aren't.  We are working with the Connect team to resolve this issue.  Thanks! @Ethan You can expect updates to the attachment system soon that should address your concerns.  I'll likely post something here or on our Connect site that announces the change.  Thanks! @Gerard Talbot & @Stifu If I am reading your comment correct, your concern is that you (or other users) can't see your own bug reports without registering, not that you simply can't see them at all (even if registered).  Assuming this is your concern, look for some posts on our blog in the near future that explain our approach to using Connect in IE9.  Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    IE9 final will require Direct2D hence the need for Vista SP2 || 7. You can run IE9 on Virtual PC by taking a vista image from the App Compat downloads and updating to SP2. I have done, and have already noticed differences against my own site.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    JustinSC [MSFT] -Thank you and I am now seeing bugs. To everyone, the Connect team was expecteing to release an update to the Connect Platform that will allow attachements to be shared publicy. https://connect.microsoft.com/Connect/feedback/details/350684/how-can-i-view-attach-files-from-the-posts-opened-by-others

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @KD Yet another (re)downloading. 2Gb this time. When this madness will end?

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @DFLT Did you even bother to read the list of features? DOM Level 2 Events and Level 3 Events are in there.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @Mitch74 I do not have to register to view and search bugzilla.mozilla.org, bugs.webkit.org, bugs.kde.org, etc.. To create and submit a bug report, yes, you have to register and that is perfectly understandable. regards, Gérard

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @ JustinSC [MSFT] You are reading my comment correct: anyone should be able to see/read/view/search his/her/others' bug reports without registering. Anyone (without registering) should be able to see/read original bug description, IE Team comments, bug reports fields, community feedback comments, etc. Creating a bug report and/or submitting a testcase can (and should) require registration: that's understandable. regards, Gérard Talbot

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    I'll be happy to provide feedback about IE9 once I no longer have to support IE6 and have time to look ahead. Microsoft publicizing a hard end-of-life date for IE would help significantly. Everyone else is already doing all they can to dissuade IE6 usage, and we have been for years.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Microsoft has traditionally supported IE for much longer on downlevel operating systems. IE4.0/SP2 -> 98, 95, NT4.0 IE5.0/SP4 -> 2000, 98, 95, NT4.0 IE5.5/SP2 -> Me, 2000, 98, 95, NT4.0 IE6.0/SP1 -> XP, 2000, 98, Me, NT4.0 IE7.0 -> Vista, XP (should have been supported on Windows 2000 but Windows 2000 market share was low in 2005) IE 8.0 -> 7, Vista, XP Windows XP market share is the highest, it's nowhere near low!!!! I will not upgrade from XP to Windows 7 because the shell has a significant number of reduced features: in Vista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_Vista) and Windows 7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_features_removed_in_Windows_7). Who else would understand the shell better than the IE team who once integrated so tightly with the shell and updated it? IE 9.0 MUST support Win XP. How do you justify alienating millions and millions of your Windows customers? Hardware acceleration is not something critical as standards rendering improvements. Microsoft, please I request you to reconsider your decision. I have lost interest suddenly in Microsoft products.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    i cannot watch this svg map with IE9 : http://tinyurl.com/y93uggw

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    I know it's hard to support XP when Microsoft has profit in mind but trust me you need the goodwill more. MS will lose a lot of goodwill by not supporting the hundreds of millions of XP users.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Does Microsoft remember how DirectX 10 has taken off in a really big way? The same thing's gonna happen to IE by dropping XP support.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Thank you the IE team from the bottom of my heart for removing XP support for IE9. XP support should have been dropped long ago with IE7. It's a highly insecure OS which gives IE a bad reputation of being vulnerable whereas IE8 on Windows Vista/7 is the most secure browser. People who are still using XP in 2010 are the same ones who are still using IE6. They just don't like to update their software/hardware. Let them take care of themselves.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @Jon We've fixed the issue with the IE Developer Forum link.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    XP nobody uses it anymore. Oh wait, only 650 million people use it but we don't care enough about giving web developers "same markup everywhere" any more than us making profit.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Here's hoping that the actual interpretation of the HTML5 elements such as canvas and native codec support find their way into the final version and that more is kept than removed in order to expediate the deployment of the final product...

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    how is it that when IE 6 had over 65% market share and didn't support a ton of functionality which were holding back developers you were all screaming for users & Microsoft to upgrade their browser. this was a valid call, it made you the developer do additional work you otherwise shouldn't have to do. now when Microsoft improves their browser by utilising technologies which aren't available on the xp platform, not to mention that it adds a huge additional cost in supporting that platform, instead of taking the same position you did for your own selfish ends, you don't hold Microsoft or the xp users to the same position (ie upgrade), instead you ask them to go through the same pain of supporting a platform which creates a huge amount of additional work. the hypocrisy of you web developers...

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Will members of the IE8 Tech Beta program automatically be considered for the new IE Tech Feedback Program, or do we need to reapply?

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    I am a web app developer and am excited about the GPU integration with HTML5.  That will be nice. But really, all I want is HTML5.  Certainly it is not an all or nothing proposition.  HTML5 can (and does) exist without GPU integration.  So, why can't IE9 enable CPU integration if the OS supports it, and just give unintegrated HTML5 to XP? Without IE9 (and HTML5 specifically) on XP, my job becomes exponentially more difficult for the next decade.  Please don't do that.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @Gérard, Stifu: ah - indeed, if registration is required to see them, forget about using a search engine to find a specific bug... It seems that viewing them also allows voting; that could be a reason to close the database down a bit, but then, why not allow voting only for registered users...? That's something to fix, indeed.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @hypocrisy of the web developer: that's a good point. You don't want to code for a 9-year old browser, and Microsoft doesn't want to code for a 9-year old OS. Seems fair to me.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    What's about COLOR MANAGEMENT?

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Microsoft's IE9 standards tests vs. reality http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2010/03/17/microsoft-svg-table

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @hypocrisy of the web developer, huh? Hardware acceleration is not the only thing new in IE9 and it is not the most important feature to developers either but certainly a nice feature to have. To Microsoft it is probably the most important as it enables them to drive Windows 7 sales. Standards support is most important to developers and Microsoft is sidelining that priority. Microsoft can always develop IE9 for XP minus hardware acceleration. It's not that it would not work without hardware acceleration and millions of users and developers will get support for DOM2, DOM3, SVG, XHTML, CSS3, HTML5 and other technologies. They need not be tied to a modern OS artificially. None of the developers want to code for a 9 year old browser. Web developers don't care about the OS, they want to code for a modern standards compliant browser and Microsoft is holding them and millions of XP users back by keeping them stuck on IE8. Of course there are other browsers available for XP, but then why would we even be having the IE6 and IE7 dormant issue? This is Microsoft's browser and XP is their own OS which is the most popular one as of today.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Please support Theora for the Beta version. Also, please put up the post about requests/questions like you promised, I'm itching to check it out.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Chrome Frame is the answer for the future http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/ Microsoft want to waste time creating another broken browser, Chrome Frame fixes it. Real HTML5 and already working CSS3.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Seriously I fail to see how Microsoft does not realize how furious and adamant XP users can be. This is IE's loss. Microsoft's loss. About 2-3 years from now, Internet Explorer marketshare will be below 30%. Then you can trumpet your accelerated graphics. Ideally, you should have supported XP till Windows 8 or 2014 whichever would come first because Vista was a disaster. XP is the precursor to Windows 7. Dumb decision.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @read IE9 level of support for SVG in this preview and for IE9 final was detailed already by IEteam. You can find it in this Ars article: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/platform-preview-gives-web-developers-first-taste-of-ie9.ars

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Microsoft I beg you, please support Ogg Theora as well as H.264. I don't want to support two competing video codecs, effectively rendering the <video> element useless, some browsers supporting H.264, others supporting Ogg Theora, I would need to server video in both formats to get cross browser compatibility.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    To the XP lovers, it's not only a Dircet graphic questions, it's a security question too. AFAIK XP not support the "IE Prodect mode". And be seriuos, you would not frown if someone ask for Win9x support here? Why all Vista/Win 7 users should fiddle around with Win XP problems or reduced functionality? One the one side you want a better system (or why you ask for XP support?) on the other side you want not upgrade?

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @ Dominic Pettifer Since h.264 is a much more quality/performance efficient codec than Theora it would be useless to support Theora. Websites that serve a lot of video require an efficient codec which effectivly means that at the moment only h.264 and VC-1 are sensible options for massivly serving video on the web. For progressive video downloads with the <video> tag h.264 seems by far the most popular option. For (smooth) streaming video VC-1 is possibly even a better alternative because of it's much low decoding footprint which can be usefull in continuous streaming situations.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    @John-Wayne, please don't bring up Protected Mode as neither IE7 nor IE8 on XP had it. The only genuine and sincere concern is standards support at par with the rest of the world for which XP should not be left behind as other browsers have no problem and IE has always lacked decent standards support since forever and now XP users will never ever get it. Microsoft is doing planned obsolescence under the pretext of technical requirements not met by the platform. We get it now that Microsoft apparently does not care enough about that. Can't we even show our disappointment? I personally am migrating to a different browser on XP and after XP support expires will probably move to a different platform. Good luck with moving your users forward to the modern dumbed down non-customizable platform.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    I have tons of padding and video problem in IEs. IE8 is a good start to fixed them. Hopefully this is not another IE headaches. What is it in IE that keeps us not removing from our computers? Cheers!

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2010
    Built in spellchecker in IE9 is an absolute must.  Please do not ship unless one is included.

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    So there is the question, why do web developers want to see the extinction of IE6 and yet do not want to "updgrade" from XP. Well, I imagine a lot of web developers are like myself where XP and the software I have installed on it does everything I want it to. It does not feel lacking in any way other than not being as "cool" as the Mac that every other developer I have worked with in the last 3 years uses. So why upgrade to something that is just becoming more bloated and silly(plastic) looking for no good reason? As a cautious user I have never had trouble with viruses, so that argument just doesn't go anywhere. I could be perfectly happy with XP and the software I have installed for years to come. Then there is IE6 on the other hand. Where XP does everything I want, IE6 does not come close to fulfilling my desires or those of my clients or web users, and what it does do, it does with hundreds of inexplicable bugs. If the bugs in IE6 had been patched, then there wouldn't have been so much heartache these last few years over it, millions of developer man hours lost to trying to figure out what the heck IE6 was doing.

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    "Since h.264 is a much more quality/performance efficient codec than Theora it would be useless to support Theora." So, what about other browsers like Opera and Firefox that do not have H.264 support. This would create a disaster for web developers. Secondly, H.264 is not royalty-free, not being roayty free is bad for the web. People aspiring to come up with the next YouTube will not get anywhere because they will have to spend tons of money paying for licensing fees. Please, IE team, support both codecs. http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2010/03/16/microsoft-letter

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    >I mean a site that would evolve into something great Like YouTube? "Great" sites have no problems getting funded.

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    @Matt I'll use an analogy: What if people had to pay to use HTML and CSS? Imagine the Web. Sites like Twitter would probably be not existent because the creator could not afford to publicize the the site because it would cost way too much. ""Great" sites have no problems getting funded." I do not think such an assumption can be made. By the way, The MPEG LA (Licensing Authority) has announced that H.264 licenses for free internet video will be free until the end of

  1. Meaning, you can only use (after 2015) H.264 encoded video for anything other than free, private, personal use unless you are willing to pay.
  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    Daniel: Your analogy is so obviously flawed I cannot help but wonder why you present it. You're asking readers to ignore the prima facie evidence (the successful web today) and enter a world where YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc, etc, etc, do not exist. And then you say "These good things could not exist unless I have my way." But these good things already do exist, which is an obvious proof that you're incorrect. The notion that these other codecs are somehow magically not at the mercy of the world's lawyers shows a blissful naivete which would be charming if it weren't so dangerous.

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    "My apologies." Ahh, personal attacks. ""Republican"" For economic stances. ""liberalistic ideas"" That needs to be updated, thank you :) "and work for Opera." I know, how dare I plan ahead. "You're asking readers to ignore the prima facie evidence (the successful web today) and enter a world where YouTube, Facebook, Google, etc, etc, etc, do not exist. And then you say "These good things could not exist unless I have my way." But these good things already do exist, which is an obvious proof that you're incorrect." No, I am asking them to enter a world where things like HTML and CSS is licensed. "The notion that these other codecs are somehow magically not at the mercy of the world's lawyers"How is Theora at the mercy of lawyers?

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2010
    when I try to go in website http://www.pcworld.com.vn and scroll it up and down. IE seems not display right much. I wonder if it has something wrong here.

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2010
    Please allow "Save Picture As" option when right clicked on any image. Currently in IE8 it only works on some images. Try by going to bing.com and right click on the image. It is very annoying to look at the source of the website just to save the image.

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2010
    Could the Platform Preview not be made available on XP, allowing people to see that their pages work fine in IE 9, without the hardware acceleration? I'd like to make use of the new HTML 5 features in IE, as well as SVG, but without being able to see that it works, I envision it not being made use of on a live site for IE9'ers. All it'll mean is Firefox, Opera, etc will get the best experiences available, while IE 9 will be restricted to <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8">, which would be a real shame, as it seems IE 9 will hold its own, and then some when it's finally released.

  • Anonymous
    March 21, 2010
    sometimes the ie9 crashes when i disable pop ups... but the rest hasnt given me much hard time. ill keep reporting you when ill find something else.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2010
    @DanielHendrycks “How is Theora at the mercy of lawyers?” I think it was meant that unknown, so-called submarine patents may exist that target Theora. “People aspiring to come up with the next YouTube will not get anywhere because they will have to spend tons of money paying for licensing fees.” If these people actually come up with something great, the royalties won't be a problem, since they’ll be making money. If they come up with something not that great, they won’t be paying, since, having a small number of subscribers, they’ll be exempt from paying. Let's see how H.264 licensing works in detail. If you’re selling video, you pay $0.02 per item in royalties. So, say, for a $1 or $2 music video you pay $0.02. How is that not reasonable? Now, if you're selling subscriptions to video, you're not paying anything if the video length is less than 10 minutes, and you're not paying anything if the number of your subscribers is less than 100'000. Then, it becomes $2'500 per year for 100'000–250'000 subscribers, $5'000 for 250'000–500'000 and $10'000 for 1'000'000–unlimited. And that is all. Well, if you have a million subscribers, you sure must be making obscene amounts of money on advertising, and the $10'000 hardly even registers on that scale. Finally, long-term, the H.264 patents are going to expire. It will happen in 2028. After that, there will be no royalties at all. And H.264 will remain supported in every browser, just like JPGs are still supported after more than 15 years. So, long-term, we’ll end up with a more scalable and more quality/power-efficient codec as a standard for internet video, which is great.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2010
    @ie8 user The picture on bing.com isn't an image, it's a background image. You can grab it with "Save Background As" on the right-click menu. Now on this one hand this is a little confusing as most users won't know or care about the difference between a background image and an embedded image. But I assume (not having tested this) that this allows for the situation where there is a image with transparent areas over a background and you can get either the image or the background image rather than one or the other being inaccessible. If translucent images become too seriously into vogue I can see the Save Picture As functionality becoming less and less helpful...

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 27, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2010
    The HTTP Accept Header is completely broken in the IE9 Platform Preview. Please insert the application/xhtml+xml MIME-Type in it!!! Please!

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2010
    And please support the SVG <script /> Element and embedding SVG with the XHTML <object /> Element. So that the SVG code can clearly seperated from the XHTML code. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2010
    Is svgz-support (compressed svg) implemented in the current version? My svg-based application crashes IE9. Is there any point trying to report this to Microsoft, or should I just wait for new releases?

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2010
    @Alina: Thanks, it's a known issue that the IE9PP1 Accept string doesn't include the XHTML MIME type. @Esveegee: No, IE9 Platform Preview #1 does not support SVGZ. Yes, please file any bugs you find!