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Mozilla Software

WGA No Longer An IE7 Requirement

According to Ars Technica, Microsoft may have removed the WGA requirement to install IE7 in hopes of gaining more market share by allowing users of pirated Windows XP systems to upgrade.

I doubt this will really do much. My guess is that those who are avoiding WGA are more technically advanced users. They either:

  • Use Firefox, since that’s what real cool kids do. Besides, they like the extensions.
  • Use Opera
  • Using a workaround to install without WGA.

I think the bigger reason IE6 is still so prominent is that corporations spent the better part of the decade bringing their applications on the web. Upgrading to IE7 means testing and upgrading them. Nobody wants to rush into that. Corporate users who will continue to use IE will mostly stick with IE6 until they move to Vista.

5 replies on “WGA No Longer An IE7 Requirement”

I would be at least as inclined to point the finger at home users, and probably more so. Speaking as a tech support rep for a major ISP, I can say that the vast majority of people I talk to have never upgraded any software in their life. As you said with corporations, it’s pretty rare to find a person running IE7 who didn’t get it because they bought a new computer with Vista.

Toe: Good point, but IE 7 was a critical update hence was auto-updated for many people even though they didn’t know to upgrade, or that it even happened (despite the new UI). Corporations don’t allow unapproved upgrades.

The reason why so many Firefox users upgrade is because of auto updates. A big reason why some 1.5 users still exist is corporate an educational, where disk images aren’t updated very often. Those old copies sit until the next time that system is re-imaged with something newer. That can be months or even years in some places.

Of course it also depends on where. There are a few companies that upgraded to Vista. And many that refuse to.

> IE 7 was a critical update hence was auto-updated for many people

That’s part of my point, though: despite auto-update, IE7 is still firmly in the minority among people using XP at home. I don’t know if users are turning auto-update off (perhaps unwittingly), or OEMs are shipping with it off, or if pirated versions that can’t be updated are more prevalent than you’d think, or if something on their system is blocking it. But one way or another, it ain’t happening.

I likewise know that many corporations have not upgraded. We just upgraded our Terminal Server last week! Rolled out slowly, to make sure there were no user issues/training issues.

Usually home users who have not updated are also the ones laden with Spyware, end up taking them to someone, who turns on their automatic updates.

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