Internet Explorer 8

[SYNACK]

The IE8 Administraton Kit is avalible from here:
Internet Explorer Administration Kit 8, IEAK 8, Download and Release Documentation | TechNet

This allows you to make it into a customized MSI that can be easily deployed through AD with all nessisary settings and also bundle stuff like search providers and custom plugins with it.

Edit: Just installed it now and it is much faster, loads up edugeek much quicker also eliminating almost all of the aditional waiting that was generated by using IE at the end of the internet.

Edit2: Tab groups are good

[Michael]

Download your version here:

Windows XP

Windows XP 64bit

Windows Vista

Windows Vista 64bit

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 64bit

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 64bit

[RabbieBurns]

Download your version here:

Windows XP

Windows XP 64bit

Windows Vista

Windows Vista 64bit

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 64bit

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 64bit

Thanks for the direct links, saved some time..

[IanT]

Installed on my home server and home pc already.

not bad

[RabbieBurns]

installed it on my laptop here, and will install it on my workstation at work tomorrow. To be honest I only use IE to access hotmail, coz the minefield I use still doesnt work with hotmail.

[ZeroHour]

I have to say I like bits of IE8
WSUS is not getting it thought until mid April.

[Michael]

I too (overall) do like IE8 and yes, it is slightly quicker than IE7. I've installed it on my home system and so far so good. Ironically, the only website I found didn't display 100% was a KB article on microsoft.com oh well...

The only other important thing is the updated intres.adm template. I have found the RC1 version (which appears to be complete), but I cannot find the RTM version (as yet).

In the meantime I've created some up-to-date Search Provider policies which works with both IE7 and IE8. You can take a look here

[DrCheese]

What are people planning with regards to deployment of this? Other than stability, tab and search improvements I'm struggling to come up with a reason to begin a plan to deploy this when Windows 7 is on the horizon.
A lot of the improvements would be disabled anyway i.e InPrivate Mode and we'd run it all in IE7 standards mode until the web matures a bit. So our end users wouldn't really see any benefits from it.

[Michael]

What are people planning with regards to deployment of this?

I'd give it a few months. Realistically you could make it a summer project if you routinely re-image machines (so July '09 time frame), but by all means, install it on a few test machines. As yet (as stated in my previous post), I cannot find the RTM intres.adm template which allows you to control new functions within IE8. Without this I wouldn't even consider deploying IE8. The RC1 version appears complete, but knowing Microsoft they may change or add new features in the RTM version.

[localzuk]

This would be a summer job or later at least. As the old saying goes 'fools rush in'.

[RabbieBurns]

Wont roll it out here until this time next year.

Is there a Group Policy pack for IE8 yet?

[Michael]

Yes just intres.adm RC1 which you can download. It works fine, but it's not the final version.

I would wait for the final intres.adm RTM version, which I suspect will be released very shortly

[ukjtf01]

I've just deployed this onto a couple of machines to test and gosh is it rubbish.

I much prefer IE7! Ever since I've installed IE8 i've had problems with the adobe reader opening into a web page and problems with my RSS feeds...

I really give up.

[SYNACK]

The sugested sites feature is funny, you would think that EG is solely about maths and proxys

[Michael]

The sugested sites feature is funny

Tell me about it. Definitely a feature I am going to switch off