What's Coming in Internet Explorer 8 for IT Professionals?

Article
06/11/2008

Yesterday at Tech Ed IT Pro 2008 in Orlando we announced some of the enhancements we’re making in Internet Explorer 8 to help IT Professionals deploy and manage IE8 within their organization. We wanted to share those with the IT Pros on our blog.

Over the last year we’ve surveyed over 2000 IT Professionals to understand their concerns and priorities for deploying and managing desktops and software within their organization. We learned that IT Pros have a lot of things to worry about - more than 30 different concerns came up. However, some topics arose considerably more frequently than others. Here are the top ones:

Deployment and implementation of new technology
Managing updates and upgrades
Application compatibility
Security of data, network and systems

Internet Explorer 7 already has a pretty strong deployment and management story. For IE7 IT Pros are able to:

Generate customized builds that include company’s settings and branding by using Internet Explorer Administration Kit(IEAK)
Centrally manage browser settings through group policy
Use common deployment infrastructures like Windows Update, Windows Server Update Services, Systems Management Server and Active Directory

In addition to deployment and management support, IE 7 introduced a number of features intended to help your users browse more safely and hence protect your corporate data, network and systems:

Phishing Filter
ActiveX Opt-in
Extended Validation Certificates

IE7 did a lot to address the concerns of the IT Professionals but we felt there were some places we could improve. Yesterday, we announced some of our new features:

Slipstream Support in Internet Explorer 8

We got consistent feedback from customers that deploying Internet Explorer 7 as part of Windows XP is hard. Many IT Pros want to update their Windows XP images to contain IE7 by default, so IE7 gets installed as part of the OS install. To do that the IT Pros need to boot their existing images of Windows XP, install IE7 and then recapture the image. This process roughly takes 2 hours per image.

With Internet Explorer 8 and Windows Vista you’ll be able to “Slipstream” Internet Explorer 8 into a Vista image so that when you deploy Vista it already contains Internet Explorer 8. To slipstream IE8 only takes 10-15 minute per image. You’ll also be able to slipstream IE8 cumulative updates so that you are shipping the most up to date and secure image.

Look out for a forthcoming post to learn more about Slipstreaming IE8.

Application Compatibility and Internet Explorer 8

You have seen a lot of discussion on this blog about our decision to ship Internet Explorer 8 with standards mode switched on by default. Today, not all sites are built to conform to web standards so we’ve given end users and developers control over how sites display in IE8.

How about IT Professionals? For one, we're adding new events to the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) that help you detect and resolve potential issues between IE8 and your internal applications and web sites. For another, we're providing Group Policy settings that help you control, with great granularity, those settings that most impact compatibility. Lastly, we're looking at how to intelligently solve this problem for intranets - providing the greatest application and web site compatibility while still maintaining our core tenets of security, performance, and reliability.

Security in Internet Explorer 8

The Internet has changed the way that people live and work. People are spending more and more time on the web but this growth in web usage also attracted people who have malicious intent. From phishing scams to sites which install malware, the web can be a dangerous place to be. Who hasn’t had to jump across the keyboard/mouse to stop a friend or loved one visiting a phishing site or installing a piece of suspicious software? What happens when that person doesn’t have their tech-savvy friend watching over their shoulder?

Did you know that more than $3 billion has been lost in Phishing scams? The browser – and particularly in IE8 - plays an important role in helping protect users against a range of attacks, from social attacks like phishing to browser based exploits.

Rather than cover those features here, we’ve already posted information about some of the ways we’re helping your users browse more safely:

There’s more to come around security in later blog postings.

Updates to the IEAK

The internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) enables IT Pros to customize IE for their company’s needs. You might be familiar with this tool since it was available for IE6 and IE7. In IE8, IEAK is getting a facelift. We have fixed a number of bugs and added some enhancements to improve the performance of IEAK. IEAK8 will support custom IE8 builds for new platforms: Vista and Windows Server 2008 and new IE8 features like Activities and Web Slices.

Stay tuned for a follow-up blog post that will contain more detail about IEAK8.

Wrap Up

We plan to include all of the above mentioned features in our Beta 2 release which is planned for August 2008. As always when developing software, features can get cut or postponed if we find bugs that affect ship quality but right now we’re on track to have these features for Beta 2.

IE7 was a great browser to deploy and manage in an enterprise or business environment. With IE8, we’re doubling down on that investment to make sure that we have the best browser to deploy and manage in an enterprise environment.

Jane Maliouta - IE Program Manager
James Pratt - IE Product Manager

Edit: Added third bullet point to the Security in Internet Explorer 8 section

Comments

Anonymous
June 11, 2008
What about slipstreaming IE8 into an XP SP3 image? Not everyone wants to use a slow, unresponsive, buggy, soon to be obsolete with Windows 7 replacing it OS called Vista. Not to mention many companies will still roll-out XP SP3 for years to come since it's far more reliable, less buggy, dependable, responsive and will run on older hardware far better than Vista ever will.
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Is there any truth to Paul T.'s notes on IE8 http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ie8_beta1.asp Beta2 possibly having listened to customer and developer feedback and actually making Toolbars customizable and movable again? IE7's user chrome is horrible in this regard, and was the user's FIRST complaint from everyone in the Enterprise market. Worst of all, the placement chosen for each item was wrong. If a "best" placement was selected, there would be a lot less complaining. cough RELOAD goes on the LEFT!!!!
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Via email: Today, we are announcing a number of enterprise features that will be available in Internet
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
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Anonymous
June 11, 2008
The Image link on the right hand side for the IE8 Beta1 download is returning 502 errors. http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/IE8Blog2.png "Connection to ieblog.members.winisp.net failed. Exception Text: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond " (actually), any request to ieblog.members is returning 502 errors. ...and whay are we hotlinking here anyway?
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
@Joseph It's all images and not just the IE8 Beta 1 image. We are aware of the issue and are looking into it.
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
OPACITY! opacity! OpAcItY! oPaCiTy! OPacITy! opACitY! oPAciTY! OpaCIty! O.P.A.C.I.T.Y! o_p_a_c_i_t_y! ooppaacciittyy!! O Pa City!
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
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Anonymous
June 11, 2008
"Today, not all sites are built to conform to web standards so we’ve given end users and developers control over how sites display in IE8." Come again? This is such a poorly worded sentence. Today, the majority of websites are built to accommdate for IE6's many problems, so Microsoft is giving web designers the ability to force the next version of IE into legacy mode.
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
rc, I wish your posts had 0% opacity :). Any word on whether people who have IE 8 Beta 1 installed will need to un-install it to get IE 8 Beta 2 installed? The last time I un-installed IE 8 it sort of broke IE 7 (that preferences screen that pops up wouldn't let me passed it due to some wierd JavaScript error - and it seemed odd it popped up at all since I had already set my preferences). Also, will IE 8 Beta 2 end up with "TWO" report broken page buttons? When I uninstalled IE 8 Beta 1 and IE 7 to install XP SP3, and then re-installed IE 7, that button from IE 8 had been left on my system (which seems like a uninstall bug).
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
@any truth I have actually come to love the fact the refresh button is on the right side of the page. It saves quite a bit of movement on my 30" monitor. And that is a real time saver. Instead of having to go all the way to the top left I can simply scroll up a bit. Think before you write.
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Wow! The IT administrator from my previous job would like those features, but I think he'd have bad time convincing all the workers to move to IE8 from their current browsers.
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
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Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Yesterday at Tech Ed IT Pro 2008 in Orlando we announced some of the enhancements we’re making in Internet
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Don't worry about the IE8 problems. Microsoft is busy working on IE9 (expected release in 2010) and it will do everything Firefox does today. Plus it will be modular and scalable and fully integrated with Windows 7. In the real world most of our corporate customers are still on IE6. We can't even get them to move to IE7. However, I'm sure IE9 will solve all our problems. ;-)
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
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Anonymous
June 11, 2008
Video interview with IE PM Jane Kim: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/WM_IN/Jane-Kim-From-Inventing-To-Implementing-IE-Features/
Anonymous
June 11, 2008
What about security and bugs? http://www.favbrowser.com/web-browsers-security-opera-internet-explorer-safari-firefox/
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
"IE7 was a great browser to deploy and manage in an enterprise or business environment" says you.. it was rubbish more like.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@bob e: Before you go talking before thinking, realize that the "far right" of the screen is not the best place for a reload button when most pages are either left or center justified. In this screenshot: http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=totallyunhelpfulth6.png from my widescreen (dual flatpanel), the cursor is just a few inches from where the RELOAD button should be. Scroll waaaaaaaay over to the right, and you'll find the reload button in IE7. considering the URL alone is only a few inches long, having the reload/stop buttons on the right makes no sense at all. This was discussed on this blog at length during IE7 development. MSFT did not want to "copy" to much UI from other browsers, because it might not look like innovation.. but since they were actually playing catch up, and other browsers had spent the time to realize the correct placement is on the left, they should have taken advantage of the fact that the research had already been done, all they had to do was copy it.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@Fred: Get a clue. IE1-IE6 had the refresh button on the left, long before Firefox and Opera ever existed.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
>Does anyone have a plugin for IE8 that removes the goofy domain highlighting? Quero (www.quero.at) is an alternate navigation bar for IE which has a different implementation of Domain Highlighting that can be turned off as well. However, the plugin is currently not fully compatible with IE8 but I am working on it.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
I like the idea of slipsteaming a Vista image with IE8 but what about XP? Please don't tell me that this feature is a Vista only one? Also, what about including a proper .msi setup installer so that existing clients of XP and Vista can be deployed with IE8 using a standard Group Policy Object (software installation).
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
Just hought I'd drop an idea in the mix for future version of IE. I'm not a developer but a professional development instructor. A nice feature to have in the tools>options area would be a URL redirect. In other words users would be able to type in a customized url they wanted and have it redirect to the actual website url. So I would put an entry in that allows me to go to my blog and call it shentrac but have it redirect to http://shentrac.wordpress.com. Obvously it would have to check this list before going out to the default search engine, etc.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
Just thought I'd drop an idea in the mix for future version of IE. I'm not a developer but a professional development instructor. A nice feature to have in the tools>options area would be a URL redirect. In other words users would be able to type in a customized url they wanted and have it redirect to the actual website url. So I would put an entry in that allows me to go to my blog and call it shentrac but have it redirect to http://shentrac.wordpress.com. Obvously it would have to check this list before going out to the default search engine, etc.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@Ted re: Get a clue. Sorry, I wasn't trying to suggest that Firefox or others INVENTED the idea of putting it on the left... ALL browsers had it on the left... Netscape, IE, all of them. Then when IE7 was being prepped, some "higher-than-thou" folks at MSFT decided that users would prefer a fixed layout, with the navigation buttons split around the address bar... it was a mistake, it has been well documented, but now we are stuck with it. My only hope is that someone in the MSFT team wakes up in IE8, and: a.) Makes all UI/chrome content customizable. b.) If not, at least moves the default position of all navigation elements where they belong on the left. Lets take a tally shall we? IE 4,5,5.5,6 (pre IE7) - LEFT Netscape - LEFT Opera - LEFT Konqueror - LEFT Galeon - LEFT Safari - LEFT Epiphany - LEFT Camino - LEFT =================== IE7 (&8?) - FAR RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! All we're asking for is the opportunity to move it. Let the PM at MSFT that thought it would be "uber kewl" to have it on the right, have it there.... the rest of us will at least be able to move it to the correct position.

enough ranting... just fix it.

Anonymous
June 12, 2008
Best browser out there to be released on Tuesday June 17th, 2008! Firefox 3! http://digg.com/software/Mozilla_Announces_Release_Date_for_Firefox_3_June_17th Join the download party and help set a world record!
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@someone "Honestly, I don't know anyone who'd say MS is giving too many options to customize." Any given Mac user would say that :-) Remember that every option is another branch in programming logic that will require testing, another decision that you (the user) must make for yourself (with or without sufficient knowledge), another item to teach tech support, and so on. Creating more decisions for the user is rarely the best solution to UI problems. Case in point, the new "IE=EmulateIE7" UA string they just introduced. Wouldn't you rather MSFT got it right the first time with "IE=7" instead of forcing you to choose between the two, especially considering that intuitively they seem to mean exactly the same thing? Apple and Microsoft have opposing philosophies regarding customizability. Apple makes the decision for you. Microsoft sloughs off the decision on you. I've come to regard that as the laziness of MSFT programmers and designers, but I'm an Apple fanboy. You want customizability because you don't trust MSFT to make the right decision. And with their UI track record, nobody blames you. Point being that I'd rather Microsoft correctly implement domain highlighting than give me the option of either using a broken implementation or no implementation. For your sake, of course, since I'll never use IE :-)
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
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Anonymous
June 12, 2008
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Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@jbullington: Cool suggestion, but all versions of IE pretty much have this feature. Create a Favorite that's named with the shortcut you want (e.g. "mysite") that's pointed at your site. Then type "mysite" in the address bar, and off you go. @Firefox3 Fanboy-- Heh... Some world-record. Unless they get over 300 million downloads in a day, then Windows Update has them beat on the first tuesday of ~every~ month.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@Markus - The world record is for most software application downloads in a 24 hour period. Full application downloads, not just a bug fix update from Patch-Tuesday[tm]. It should also be noted that Opera 9.5 is out! If you want to see a screaming fast browser, take a peek it does render extremely fast.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
@oliver: fine, although WU pushes all kinds of stuff, including new versions of IE. given that IE has >5x the marketshare of FF, i'm sure WU still wins. Opera 9.5 is a nice improvement over 9.2.
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
And Finally, What about Acid3?
Anonymous
June 12, 2008
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Anonymous
June 12, 2008
"from my widescreen (dual flatpanel), the cursor is just a few inches from where the RELOAD button should be. Scroll waaaaaaaay over to the right, and you'll find the reload button in IE7." This has to do with the fact that the windows UI was never designed for multitasking. Most people run one application fullscreen, the whole Windows UI is built around this. The error in this way of making a UI becomes clear once you start using a bigger and/or widescreen monitor. Try running Windows on a 24" widescreen and then compare to a 24" Mac. The current Windows desktop design was made with a 14" 800x600 display in mind, it is no longer relevant on modern hardware.
Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080610-commissioner-disses-microsoft-open-standardssmart-business.html "Standards are clearly more important than ever. They often facilitate economies of scale but their real impact on technology markets is with interoperability," said Kroes. "I know a smart business decision when I see one—choosing open standards is a very smart business decision indeed." Choose open web standards, say no to proprietary vendor lock-in(Silverlight).
Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
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Anonymous
June 13, 2008
Well, here I am... time to give this an install. /me crosses fingers. I hope I don't have any probs with .NET and IE8. Although on a Dev machine, would be just a 'Miracle' if all went well.
Anonymous
June 13, 2008
@Ted: I didn't say Firefox invented it, I just said it's funny how IE's implementation was almost identical to Firefox 3 alpha's version of the feature. It's still available, but turned off by default, and switching it back on may have been an attempt at allowing in-the-field comparison between Fx and IE. If, as you said, it was created by another browser (or browser add-on), well, it seems this feature doesn't bear a closer look (not like tabbed browsing did). About the number of simultaneous connections: yes, raising the default was prompted by IE's implementation. No, it wasn't new: the Fasterfox extension already tinkered with this setting, which had been questioned time and again (I think a first bug report on it dates back to 2002) because it increases load on networks if everybody increases from default. Opera may have tinkered with these settings too. If the dominant browser raises this setting, webmasters and sysadmins will have to deal with it; if the runner-up starts the trend, they may put the blame on Firefox. If all browsers do the same thing at the same time, well, we will see.
Anonymous
June 14, 2008
Are there any plans to fix the insanely stupid Favorites Menu? Every time I wish to add a Favorite, I must look through this HUGE list with EVERY SINGLE FOLDER EXPANDED. I mean, who the h***'s idea is that anyway? It is beyond idiotic and the won't change it!
Anonymous
June 15, 2008
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Anonymous
June 15, 2008
i am hoping its fast as firefox opera or safari its too slow right now either 7 - 8.
Anonymous
June 15, 2008
I think he'd have bad time convincing all the workers to move to IE8 from their current browsers
Anonymous
June 15, 2008
I just want "these little things" to appear in IE8:
Native SVG support
Unicode Adress Bar support
Acid3 improvement
Faster loading/performance ... IE used to be my best browser ...
Anonymous
June 16, 2008
Improvements could also be in: Supporting HD Photo. Use less of a memory footprint. Render large images faster. Improve address bar historic suggestions Customize GUI. Much better error information for users. Much easier in page search Dictionary / spelling control Syntax highlighting in default source viewer Free Beer for upgraders to IE 8
Anonymous
June 16, 2008
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Anonymous
June 16, 2008
Issue 1) Back in IE6, I think, I had all the button next to each other. Back:Forward:Home:Refresh: etc. And I could customize the buttons too. Now, with IE7, 8, everything is all over the place and I can't customize it. Do IE developers actually use IE? How is this an improvement? I have to use stuff like Avant browser extension so I can customize the buttons again. Issue 2) Seeing from IE8, there really isn't any end user improvements. How about mouse gestures? Or a cookie manager so I can save/dump specific cookies upon exit? Spell checker? You know, stuff that people might use on a daily basis? Again, I end up using Avant browser and cookie manager so I can use mouse gestures and manage my cookies and dump all the doubleclick tracking cookies.

Just install mouse gestures (ie: IE7 pro add-in, Avant Browser), use it for a week and tell me it is not a vast improvement. Why do I have to even point out this stuff? For people whose job is improving IE all day, these things should already be self evident.

Anonymous
June 17, 2008
Why don't you develop a browser that supports all technologies, instead of making web site administrators/developers adapt, and change their sites for your new browser? Don't you guys know what backwards-compatible means?
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
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Anonymous
June 17, 2008

Add SVG support
Give us a download manager
Crash recovery capabilities
Last page visited remembering
CSS 3.1
Faster webpage rendering and loading
At least few customization capabilities in the UI
Easier plug-in manager,still way too complicated -Faster IE development, 1 build every 6 months? You promised a faster development for IE,where is it? Please Microsoft,catch up,quickly!

Anonymous
June 17, 2008
By the way cuddos for the slipstream capabilities :)
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
<<it seems this feature doesn't bear a closer look (not like tabbed browsing did).>> Uh, you know that tabs first appeared in an IE-based browser, right?
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
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Anonymous
June 17, 2008
Oh yeah, forgot download manager. Need an integrated download manager with ability to pause, resume, etc. Regarding mouse gestures, try them for a week, that's all I ask. Once you get used to closing tabs, moving backwards, forwards, all with a single mouse flick, you won't go back. This is very basis stuff to implement. Would not take more that a couple days to develop. Heck, you can even go to codeproject.com, download the appropriate open source code and cut and paste into IE source. Or release it as an IE expansion pack.
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
This blog has been created to share useful information. Thanks and greetings!
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
As many others have pointed out, fix your toolbars. Every other browser has sane button placement and customizable toolbars, but IE 7 and IE8b1 don't. It's madness! Oh yeah, for the Windows XP version, put the menu bar back at the top where it is expected. I know you like to hide it because you think menu bars are ugly, but not everyone knows the shortcuts to copy and paste. Lastly, hsl colors please :D
Anonymous
June 17, 2008
Also, why is the RUNAS command disabled in IE7 under Vista? Anyone? Anyone?.....
Anonymous
June 18, 2008
Major issue: everything Solution: get firefox Take care!
Anonymous
June 18, 2008
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Anonymous
June 19, 2008
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Anonymous
June 19, 2008
What is an actual source of compatibility problems between IE7 and IE8 (standards mode)? Most web sites in the Web are compatible with IE7. Your statement is that they are not standard-compliant and thus your IE8 will not be compatible. But lets take a look that a lot of sites are compatible also with such standarts compatible browsers as Safari and Firefox. This compatibility is (at least often, maybe always) done by detecting browser version in JavaScript. And almost everywhere for IE it's done by checking that browser name is IE and its version is greater than 7 (or 6) (or something like that). So I think you may avoid almost all compatibility problems by reporting non IE UserAgent. Or by inventing new UserAgent for IE8. Sorry my bad english. :(
Anonymous
June 20, 2008
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Anonymous
June 20, 2008
As James and I mentioned in our blog post What’s coming in IE8 for IT Pros? , IE8 can now be slipstreamed
Anonymous
June 20, 2008
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Anonymous
June 21, 2008
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Anonymous
June 23, 2008
I've always wanted a download manager integrated into IE. I’m grateful for all the add security developments so I don’t have to keep fixing friends and family computers. But surely MS you could get one of your junior developers to spend a few weeks writing a download manager!! Firefox has one.
Anonymous
June 23, 2008
Yeah, FINAL REVERT for Microsoft in this version (IE8)... If you don't listen to what users need, please don't blame anyone if you lose your IE's market share to other browsers (ex: Firefox, Safari,...) Rather switch to Firefox - so long ago
Anonymous
August 12, 2008
Si sta avvicinando a grandi passi il rilascio della Beta 2 della versione 8 di Internet Explorer . Come
Anonymous
September 22, 2008
Hi, my name is Jatinder Mann and I work on the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) and Group
Anonymous
October 14, 2008
Добрый день, меня зовут Ятиндер Манн (Jatinder Mann) и я работаю над Internet Explorer Administration
Anonymous
March 19, 2009
    올랜도에서 개최된 Tech Ed IT Pro 2008 (영어) 에서 Internet Explorer 8 을 조직내에서 배포, 관리하기 위해, 몇가지 기능을

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What's Coming in Internet Explorer 8 for IT Professionals?

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