Internet Explorer 8 - WTF?

[Darth Wong]

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

Well I must be doing something differently. I'm not even exaggerrating when I say I haven't had issues with Microsoft software for years, consistently.

What part of "stop wasting my goddamned bandwidth with your fucking idiotic posts" do you not understand, douche-nozzle? You've done absolutely nothing in this thread except to boast that you're not one of the people having problems. Do you also post in threads about health problems by bragging that you're healthy, fucktard?

The fact that you're not personally experiencing these problems does not in any way cast doubt on their occurrence, you stupid little shit.

[Oskuro]

Fellatio jokes. Cute. I like how it took you all of about two days to come up with that, asshole.

Actually it was more like two seconds, contrary to what you might believe, forums are not real-time affairs, people can come in an read posts a couple days later. Of course, there's ample evidence in this very thread about your notion that all users should experience the same regardless, wich as computer science goes is pretty idiotic.
Although not as idiotic as failing to understand that the problems mentioned by Mike began after the IE 8 update, maybe your super-advanced space brain can pinpoint the exact cause of a problem with no prior research, but us lesser beings have to actually look at things logically and begin with the latest change to the system.

Also, despite all your naysaying, Microsoft does not have the best track record when it comes to stability in their updates, and before you try it, others being worse does not excuse MS fuckups. So get your tounge out of MS's ass, will you? (Hey, look, a cute ass-kissing joke!)

[Ace Pace]

In another MS WTF, what the shit is Windows Search 4.0? It's another "upgrade" pushed out by MS Update, and it's absolute shit. It replaces the find files (win+f) interface with something that by default searches only outlook/outlook express, and requires considerable fucking with to get to do what the find files function it replaced did: FIND FUCKING FILES.

Windows Search is the same basic idea as the search in the Vista Start Menu, better indexing and better searching than the default find files commands.
By default I think it also indexs My Documents which is pretty useful if your documents are there.
It's pretty fast for what it does and really helps. I'm kinda suprised it auto installed for you, it usually only comes if you have MS Outlook 2007 installed.

My main beef with it is the difficulty in getting the normal find files interface.

[Davey]

I set my windows updater to tell me when updates are available but don't download or install them without my permission. Although this usually means I'll be a bit behind everyone on updates, it gives me the peace of mind knowing that I won't install something I don't like, such as Internet Explorer 8. I've figured that software will always, regardless of who makes it, will have a few bugs and glitches at first, so, if what I have works fine, I'll usually take my time when it comes to upgrading.

Of course, this means I have to keep track of things myself, but it's a small price to pay.

[Xon]

In another MS WTF, what the shit is Windows Search 4.0? It's another "upgrade" pushed out by MS Update, and it's absolute shit. It replaces the find files (win+f) interface with something that by default searches only outlook/outlook express, and requires considerable fucking with to get to do what the find files function it replaced did: FIND FUCKING FILES.

Default behaviour for Windows Search 4.0 (WDS) indexes; IE history&favourites, C:\Documents and Users (under XP) or C:\Users (under Vista), Start menu and any shared folders by default.

If it can't find it in the index, it starts a manuel file crawl like the old search does. And it tells you when you are searching an unindexed folder.

Properly setup, Windows desktop search is quite good. Able to provide (near)instant search results across a network over hundreds of thousands of files. WDS will query remote computers running WDS to use thier indexes rather than crawlling the filesystem, and since shares are automatically indexed by it, it is a win.

[Xon]

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

Something must be fucked up on that hardware then. Because a pure clean install of windows, updates and then IE8 should not do that.

I know I've formated enough VMs & physical machines, patches and autoapplied IE and never had that issue to make me seriosuly question your setup.

[Terralthra]

Dude, they were rebuilds. The only thing that had been done to each was the hard drives were formatted and a clean copy of Windows installed, then Windows Update was run. IE8 is bugshit. Wrap your brain around it.

Something must be fucked up on that hardware then. Because a pure clean install of windows, updates and then IE8 should not do that.

I know I've formated enough VMs & physical machines, patches and autoapplied IE and never had that issue to make me seriosuly question your setup.

Computer worked perfectly in every other respect, including IE7's rendering and several benchmarking and hardware testing programs.

If it can't find it in the index, it starts a manuel file crawl like the old search does. And it tells you when you are searching an unindexed folder.

That was not the behavior it exhibited. I had to change several settings to get it to do a file crawl. Under default settings, I would put in a file name and it would simply say "Not found in indexed locations" and stop.

[Edward Yee]

EDIT: Also, I have three windows open with a total of 14 tabs on Firefox and it doesn't even hiccup, whereas IE8 dies a horrible death with just one window with about 6 tabs open.

I have run multiple Firefox tabbed windows, with over forty tabs in one window alone, without a hitch.

[Isil`Zha]

Jesus, I've had so many tabs open I installed the beta of a tab grouping plugin - I had 112 tabs open in FireFox.

[Edi]

Properly setup, Windows desktop search is quite good. Able to provide (near)instant search results across a network over hundreds of thousands of files. WDS will query remote computers running WDS to use thier indexes rather than crawlling the filesystem, and since shares are automatically indexed by it, it is a win.

So, what are the chances of this thing being properly set up by Windows Update? I tried it for a while and on XP Pro it caused so many problems compared to the old way of doing things that I removed it. The experience it gave me led to me assessing it as being a piece of shit waste of time.

[Xon]

Jesus, I've had so many tabs open I installed the beta of a tab grouping plugin - I had 112 tabs open in FireFox.

I've had IE8 easily handly opening +80 tabs at once(as in click a favorites group, and opend that many tabs at once), beyond for the half-open connection limit which firefox can't get around, it handled it fine. No crashing or instability at all.

Of course it probably helps I've got Flash blocked by default. Fucking buggy plugins.

IE does warn you if you are opening something +30 links into new windows/tabs at once, but a lot of that is due to the half-open connection limit.

So, what are the chances of this thing being properly set up by Windows Update? I tried it for a while and on XP Pro it caused so many problems compared to the old way of doing things that I removed it. The experience it gave me led to me assessing it as being a piece of shit waste of time.

The biggest issue is you need it to index your stuff. By default it doesn't actually index most of the drive, especially if you don't put your stuff in the places it indexes by default.

The indexer is quite aggressive at reducing how much it indexes when the user is doing something, and XP doesn't have IO priority so the indexer isn't quite as responsive at backing off as in Vista. So one issue is it takes while for it to index everything, since the indexer slows to a crawl or even a stop if the user is touching the computer at all.

The biggest win in Vista, is the search is integrated into the Start menu. That is fucking awesome.

[Ryan Thunder]

Of course, there's ample evidence in this very thread about your notion that all users should experience the same regardless, wich as computer science goes is pretty idiotic.

What's idiotic from a computer science perspective is expecting an operating system that runs third-party software to run flawlessly regardless of what third-party bullshit you've installed into it, and then blaming the programmers when something they have zero control over or input into the creation of fucks it up by doing something as retarded as messing with files that should be static.

Although not as idiotic as failing to understand that the problems mentioned by Mike began after the IE 8 update, maybe your super-advanced space brain can pinpoint the exact cause of a problem with no prior research, but us lesser beings have to actually look at things logically and begin with the latest change to the system.

So, clearly, you've never actually encountered issues of any sort of complexity, because its a trivial matter to add a function to a program that is well written on its own but happens to interact badly with another function elsewhere. Both work, but if they aren't written collaboratively one of them could do something that breaks the other.

[Oskuro]

Oh, enough with the spin doctoring, the logic here is simple: Stable System -> Install IE8 -> Unstable System.

Now I agree that MS programmers cannot foresee all the issues that might crop up as their software interacts with other software, and it really isn't their fault, but the issue here is that IE8 altered something that caused the system to become unstable in some way, hence it is IE8's fault at that time.

The next step is to backtrack, determine wich programs are clashing, try to make them work together, or choose wich ones you prefer to have if the incompatibilities are unsolvable.

From what I gather, your method would rather be to assume IE8 is working fine, blame it all on those dirty freewares, nuke them from orbit, and make a clean Windows install. Of course, this method betrays a lack of memory (or maybe you've been lucky) of the many times even clean Windows installs with exclusively MS software have produced instabilities or worse.

Your attitude is idiotic because no matter how well crafted a piece of software is, as soon as it reaches the hands of the final user and its unforeseeable system configuration, the results become uncertain. But then again, since you seem to have had no problems with your software before, it must mean everyone else is wrong. Sadly, that's probably the mindset at MS, wich results in supposedly user-friendly software being as friendly as a ragin rottweiler with a penchant for anal intrusion.

Also, explain to me what type of dirty evilfreeware software would compel IE8 to alter a font file. Or just read the thread, dammit, and stop your "It worked for me, you're all doing it wrong" whinning.

[Edi]

So, what are the chances of this thing being properly set up by Windows Update? I tried it for a while and on XP Pro it caused so many problems compared to the old way of doing things that I removed it. The experience it gave me led to me assessing it as being a piece of shit waste of time.

The biggest issue is you need it to index your stuff. By default it doesn't actually index most of the drive, especially if you don't put your stuff in the places it indexes by default.

The indexer is quite aggressive at reducing how much it indexes when the user is doing something, and XP doesn't have IO priority so the indexer isn't quite as responsive at backing off as in Vista. So one issue is it takes while for it to index everything, since the indexer slows to a crawl or even a stop if the user is touching the computer at all.

The biggest win in Vista, is the search is integrated into the Start menu. That is fucking awesome.

Thanks. So it's basically a useful add-on to Vista that fucks things up when bolted onto to XP. At least with my machine, it took fucking forever to do anything, slowed down start times, made the standard search completely unusable for finding anything (since my files are all in non-standard places) and was all in all a giant fucking pain in the ass.

I hate Vista, but it does do some things better than XP, and this is apparently one of them.

[Starglider]

What's idiotic from a computer science perspective is expecting an operating system that runs third-party software to run flawlessly regardless of what third-party bullshit you've installed into it, and then blaming the programmers when something they have zero control over or input into the creation of fucks it up by doing something as retarded as messing with files that should be static.

Works fine under Linux and MacOS. It's true that installing things on Linux can be a pain if the auto-install fails (drivers, particularly), but I've never heard of a case where installing the latest version of Firefox broke anything else on the system.

So, clearly, you've never actually encountered issues of any sort of complexity, because its a trivial matter to add a function to a program that is well written on its own but happens to interact badly with another function elsewhere. Both work, but if they aren't written collaboratively one of them could do something that breaks the other.

Writing APIs that expose a useful amount of functionality without compromising system stability is difficult, but perfectly possible for good engineers. Microsoft either doesn't employ good engineers in the first place, or mismanages them until they produce crap. Internally, Windows has always been a nightmarish mismash of subsystems that (ironically) works far less well than its open source competition; this situation has been slowly improving, but they still have a fair way to go.

[Crayz9000]

{Would you like some cheese with your whine?}

Which distribution are you using?

I used to use Mandrake (now Mandriva) until everything generally got so corrupted as to be unusuable, which I would say was mainly their fault for extending RPM to the breaking point. Gentoo worked for a while, but I wanted bleeding-edge updates and basically had an entirely alpha system running -- not the best idea for long term stability. Fedora Core works nicely for servers, but I don't really trust YUM/RPM for stable upgrades after my Mandriva experience; I usually just back up whatever needs backing up and do a fresh install of the new versions.

I've been using Ubuntu at home since version 5.04 and I have to say, unless you do something insanely stupid (such as UNPLUGGING the computer in the middle of a distribution UPGRADE) the Debian apt system is ridiculously stable. And even if you do something as stupid as that, it's possible to resume, FIX IT, and have your computer back and working STABLY within a day by simply restarting the upgrade process -- without losing any data.

I DARE you to try upgrading XP to Vista, unplug it in the middle, and NOT have to reformat and reinstall afterward.

Oh, yeah, and if you're using the Nvidia proprietary drivers, they tend to be slightly unstable and sometimes after upgrading the kernel it doesn't work, so OH NOES, you have to go to the command line and do something like dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. Whoop de doo, cry me a fucking river. At least I didn't have to reboot the effing computer! If your video drivers get hosed in Windows, you usually have to reboot into Safe Mode, unininstall the offending driver, and install the new version (but wait! There's no networking in Safe Mode unless you pick it specifically! Oops, gotta reboot again...)

[RogueIce]

I have a bit of an IE8 WTF of my own. Namely, the address bar. For whatever reason, the "stardestroyer.net" is in the usual black. But everything else, the "http://bbs." and the "/posting.php?whatever" is gray. It's the same for any site I've gone to. So two questions:

1) Why the heck is IE8 doing this? I assume there's some reason for it?

2) How do I make it stop and have the text go back to being all black? Can I?

This is not really a major issue, like the italicized text thing (FWIW apparently I missed out on that one, yay) but it's rather annoying.

[Ace Pace]

This is a partial anti phishing measure, meant to highlight what domain you're on. This what you can easily tell apart say
www.paypal.com and paypal.evil.com. You'd be suprised at how many people don't notice that sort of stuff.

How to disable it? Not sure.

[RogueIce]

This is a partial anti phishing measure, meant to highlight what domain you're on. This what you can easily tell apart say
http://www.paypal.com and paypal.evil.com. You'd be suprised at how many people don't notice that sort of stuff.

How to disable it? Not sure.

Sounds like a useful feature then. Not that it'll likely be an issue for me, as I rarely do online transactions anyway, but handy I suppose.

A bigger complaint right now is the input boxes, such as the one I'm using right now to type this. The stupid vertical scrollbar jumps the fuck around, back up to some point in the box, rather than staying where I'm typing. Has happened both here and on the SDN World Wiki.

Not sure how to describe it well, but here goes:

When I get to the "bottom" of the vertical scrollbar, it seems to automatically jump back up, not to the top but to some midlevel point, whenever I type anything. This, obviously, makes typing rather difficult. Any ideas?

Of course, to make a lier out of me, it's not doing it with this post, though it did do it on an STGOD post I made very recently, and earlier with the aforementioned Wiki edits.

EDIT: OK, figured it out. If the scrollbar is already active when I try to type, it'll do it (as it is to me right now in my edit). If the scrollbar isn't active yet, but becomes active later. It will.