Did Ya Know? Microsoft to Force IE7 Update on February 12th

A post over at Slashdot caught my attention: Microsoft to Force IE7 Update on February 12th:

“InfoWorld is reporting that on February 12th, Microsoft will roll out Internet Explorer 7 through Windows Server Update Services to all systems – regardless of whether or not the update had been requested previously. The piece also mentions ways to prevent the update from occurring, for sysadmins who do not want to use IE7 on their systems. Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to ‘security concerns’.”

After a quick check of the InfoWorld Article Microsoft warns businesses of impending autoupdate to IE7, it does appear that an Internet Explorer update to version 7 will be forced down IE users throats. Luckily the article provides info on how to work around the auto-update for sys admins and I bet the average user isn’t even aware of the coming changes or how it might affect them. This interesting stat shows that IE6 still has a decent user base, more than I’d have guessed:

More than one in every three people still relies on IE6, according to data gathered by Web metrics vendor Net Applications. During December 2007, IE6 accounted for 35 percent of the browsers that visited the 40,000-some sites monitored by the company.

Additional reading:

• Microsoft to force IE7 update
• Microsoft reveals how to avoid forced IE7 upgrade
• Just say no (or yes) to a forced IE7 upgrade | NetworkWorld.com …