Early Customer Enthusiasm for a More Beautiful Web

You folks have placed IE9 on the right track...especially around performance and standards.  That is much appreciated.  There are some design choices in this Beta that I find somewhat confusing though.  Primarily, why would you hide the Command Bar which hosts commands "Send to OneNote", "Messenger Companion", Feeds etc.  There must be a solution that gives you the minimalist ui you seek and access to commands like those I mentioned.  I'm sure there was some technical reason, but couldn't the designers have placed the Command Bar in the same location as the 3 "fixed" icons and rework the look-n-feel of the command bar to match.  

One suggestion to make websites shine even more with IE9 and Windows 7, I think you should take the "Pinned Site" capability one step farther and enable webslices to be previewed directly from the Windows 7 taskbar.

I like JohnCz's suggestion about putting web slices on the taskbar. Why not go even further - why not add them as Windows gadgets (that way they'd work on Vista too - unlike site jump lists).

Love what you have done with IE9 thus far, just hope it won't be another 4-6 weeks before we see further progress. Would really love to see faster beta/refresh cycles or even a nightly build. Is there a reason folks on connect.microsoft.com can't be a part of such a process to see how the browser evolves?

IE team needs to realize that not everyone wants IE9 in a minimal less-functionality form, so they can't take out features just like that arbitrarily and say "This is by design". Users need a way to enable/disable them. So far, Microsoft has already taken out in the beta:

- Most of the status bar functionality except zoom button and showing hyperlink upon mouse hover.

- Ability to freely move browser elements in unlocked state. By all browser elements, I mean address bar, tab bar, menu bar, favorites bar, command bar, and the Favorites-Feeds-History pane (left or right). Give users this and they will be insanely happy about how customizable IE9 is. IE8 allowed moving some bars at least to different positions. Why can't we have the same level of customizability?

- Common address bar and search box (one box) should be optional because a dedicated search box allows searching with the same search terms but using a different search provider. I don't want to type my search terms again if I want to search with a different provider. IE has always allowed address bar search and search aliases even before there was a separate search box. Also, without a search box, I am now *forced to* identify the search engine by its icon, confusing if I created multiple OpenSearch queries with Google and Bing. Search box with dropdown helps read a list of all engines with the textual names. Please give *users* an option about such a HUGE change in the UI.

- Ability to show icon and name of the site in the title bar. Now it's just an empty useless title bar. On tabs, the title gets truncated if its long or too many tabs are open. Where do we see the page title then?

- Text labels, selected text labels and large icons option for command bar (toolbar) buttons. Taking these away also affects any custom toolbar buttons I install.

- Tab list dropdown menu and Quick Tabs button!!! The ones in IE8 to the left of the first tab. These were so useful to switch to any tab from a list or thumbnail preview. Don't take them away please.

- Completed MB, progress bar and transfer rate. Every version of IE has had these. Also IE should play the default beep sound upon download completion if sounds are enabled. By taking away the progress bar from the Download window, IE team has also got rid of progess bar in Windows 7 taskbar which was a new feature of Windows 7.

- "Open in new tab" blue arrow in Favorites pane is gone.

- I don't see the following options in Internet Options: Automating prompting for file downloads, Open files based on content, not file extension, Enable page transitions and Print background colors and image.

-  Favorites pane cannot be resized to its left.

These are all regressions from the previous version and I hope to see each and every one of these fixed. I have submittted them on Connect as well but MS tends to ignore these and then suddenly closes all bugs as "By design". Users end up with loss of functionality in the new version.

Rest of it is all good. IE9 is a very good browser now with competitive standards support.

The status bar in IE8 for example included SmartScreen info, certificate info, addon manager, pop-up blocker, privacy policy, security zone, InPrivate info and a progress bar. All of these have been removed and I fear the team will say "This is by design" in the end.

I was hoping that ie9 would introduce a better password management(like Firefox or better) but it has not happened. It is the only thing that makes me use other browsers.

That is amazing guys especially considering only Win 7 and Vista are supported!

yeah as mentioned in another comment here, the password manager is still the old same old one...nothing to be really proud of seriously >>> use lastpass ;)

Okay this said I just wanted to ask: are gonna get IE9 beta updates through Windows Updates or not? I would tend to think that yes...considering that IE9 replaces IE8 completely and appears in the list of Windows installed updates.

There are many bugs that cannot wait too long ;)

IE9 is awesome, congrats to IE team. My suggestion would be an "autozoom" feature. I use IE with zoom level of 165% on my 22" display (1680x1050), which works very well with every site I use, all sites fit exactly in the IE window, no wasted empty spaces on the right, neither horizontal scrollbar at the bottom, and text is much more readable, no "hairy" fonts, etc etc. Every site looks like real newspapers at this zoom level. I will never use 100% zoom level anymore. I'm sure, lot of peaple doesn't know that zooming even exists in IE or in any browser, IE should set the right zoom level for those people automatically. Think about those people they don't know this feature is there already. :-)

A bug regarding your feedback system for IE9:  the browser does not recognize Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant if you have the latest beta version installed.  Now, I love some of the new features available in Windows Live Essentials beta, and am not prepared to revert back to the older version just to provide feedback, but at the same time I would like to share my thoughts on IE9.

Since I cannot do that there, here's one piece of feedback from myself:  while I understand what you were going for by putting both the tab bar and the address bar in one row, it does tend to get a tad inconvenient if (like me) you have more than 5 or 6 tabs open on a small laptop screen (like me).  For a big screen, one row is perfectly fine, but I think there should be an option to change it back to the "classic" two rows for those of us who 'enjoy' squinting at tiny screens.

Just my two cents.

I like the new address bar but I wish it would search my favorites for matches.

@swinn The combined search and address bar should search your favorites as well as your history and search provider (assuming you opt-in to the latter)

If you aren't seeing that behavior, you can send feedback by clicking on the Tools menu (the gear icon) and clicking Send Feedback.

@mustafaburny There's a known issue with the Windows Live Essentials Beta.  See below :

Thank you for installing the IE9 Beta and helping us to make it better through your feedback!

We have identified an issue with the Send Feedback tool for users of the IE9 Beta on 64-bit versions of Windows 7, Vista, and Server 2008 who have also installed the Windows Live Essentials Beta.  Enhancements made to the Windows Live Essential Beta prevent the Feedback tool from running – you will receive a message entitled “Please install the Windows Live ID Sign-in Assistant” with a link to ”Get the Windows Live ID Sign-In Assistant”.  When you try to download and install from the link, it will say you already have a more recent version installed.  This issue has been reported by users in Connect, and we will update those bugs as we investigate the issue.

To provide the IE team with your feedback, go directly to the IE Feedback Program on Microsoft Connect (connect.microsoft.com/ie).  This is the same location where all entries from the Feedback Tool are logged.  You can use it to view, edit, and comment on bugs, and to see the results of our investigation.  You need to register on Connect to use the Send Feedback tool and the IE Feedback Program. Registering is a quick and easy process described here: connect.microsoft.com/.../content.aspx.  Once registered, you can go directly to the Feedback page (connect.microsoft.com/.../feedback), search for your issue, and submit new feedback if it is not found.  The Feedback page has additional information on the process.

Your feedback is very important to us and much appreciated.  Thank you for taking the time to let us know about your experiences with the IE9 Beta.

Justin Saint Clair

Program Manager, Internet Explorer

@Kazi @Millan @logos @Anbarasu

You can easily file feedback directly with our engineering team by opening the Tools menu (the gear icon) and clicking Send Feedback.  Note : There are some issues if you also have the Windows Live Essentials Beta - see my other comments on that topic against this post.

Filing feedback in this way is the best way to get action taken on it.  Thanks!

@7flavor

All of the UI changes in IE9 were informed by data from millions of users : blogs.msdn.com/.../user-experiences-site-centric-browsing-on-windows.aspx

Many of the features you list as being removed from IE9 Beta - Favorites Bar, Status Bar, Command Bar, re-ordering menus - can easily be re-activated by ht clicking between your tabs and the home/favorites/tools icons and then choosing the features you want back.

Hope this helps!

@James Pratt, no that doesn't help. None of the features that I mentioned are being reinstated. IE is getting less powerful for catering to the lowest common denominator.

@ James Pratt: yes as mention in my comment about another IE blog post here, I'm runnig W7/64 and Live Essentials beta, so my send feedback interface in IE9 doesn't work. I reported it on "answers" here:

social.answers.microsoft.com/.../3c598dcd-e26d-436b-9a21-d23347efbee9

As I'm already registered on "connect", I'll report there then ;)

@James Pratt: No doubt that Internet Explorer 9 is great and much-much faster then IE8. I have also uninstalled all other browsers except IE9. I love the pinned site feature of IE9 - It's really great, but I have seen one thing that till the time taskbar is at bottom location, I can successfully pin the websites to taskbar, but as soon as I change the taskbar position to Left or Right or Top, then I am not able to pin the websites to taskbar. In these three positions as soon as I tear off the tab and drag any tab to taskbar, the Aero Snap feature comes to play and maximize the IE 9 window instead of pinning to taskbar. Is this normal??

@7flavor

Thanks for responding, I think I understand your feedback better now and you make some good points.  I suggest you send these suggestions in through the Send Feedback tool so they get evaluated as part of the overall feedback we're receiving.

Thanks.

@Ravi Dixit Yes, that's a great bug to file through the Send Feedback tool.  Open the Tools menu (gear icon) and click Send Feedback.

FYI You can work around this for now by grabbing the icon in the address bar to your task bar.

I have found a Swedish web (about genealogy) that loads very slow when using IE8, but fast when using Google Chrome.

It is not the whole website that is slow, but some of the pages.

I have tested the same web using IE9, and it is also slow to display and scroll down the long list of names.

Link to the page:

bossebus.eu/.../index.php

/Bengt

@BengtNilssonOfficeITPartner

Can you send feedback through the "Send Feedback" tool in IE9?  (Tools Menu (gear icon) then Send Feedback) .  It'll ensure the issue you're seeing gets appropriate attention.

Thanks

I have the beta installed on Win7. I find it slow and very unreliable, especially with video. Could this be because I also have Windows Live Beta installed? How do I remove it and return to IE8? I tried the Control Panel "Remove Programs", but IE9 Beta is still with me.

Where can "average joe public" submit feedback for IE9? The only feedback forum I could find was Microsoft Connect(?) & seemed noticably geared towards developers (& in the end what I suspect was a bug on the site wouldn't allow me to submit my feedback anyway)

@wardbeattie @deeply_unhappy

You can bring up the Send Feedback tool in Internet Explorer 9 Beta by pressing Alt-x and then K.

Uninstall instructions can be found at : windows.microsoft.com/.../how-do-i-install-or-uninstall-internet-explorer-9

@ James Pratt

Apparently there's a bug with IE9 beta & win 7 64 bit whichg prevents the Feedback tool from working. Found that out from another IE9 related blog somewhere.

@deeply_unhappy

See my response to @mustafaburny above, it contains instructions for sending feedback if you have both IE9 Beta and Windows Live Essentials Beta.

replying to James Pratt,

Thanks for posting your response however it doesn't really help.

As I said previously, that website seems noticably geared towards developers rather than the general public.

I did try posting there & found it very difficult to find a suitable catagory for my layman's concerns & problems & then finally found that it wouldn't let me submit it (page kept returning completed fields as being blank & requiring information)

Having experienced the farce which was the roll out of Hotmail Wave 4 (indeed still experiencing problems) I'm quite concerned that such a disater will be repeated here. It's all very well knowing about the bug which prevents the feedback tool operating, fixing it would be a better option though.

I'd also add that I can't find  windows Live Essentials beta on my system & as it's a beta release presume I would have actively had to install it & have no memory of doing this.

All I want to do is submit the feedback of an average user, it shouldn't be this hard. Is it any wonder so many go elsewhere for browsers?

Thanks @deeply_unhappy.  I've passed your feedback about the Send Feedback tool on to the team responsible for it.

Is there a list of known issues in IE 9 that we can access, and (ideally) that will let us know which release they'll be fixed in? I'd love to keep using IE 9 but it breaks some key functionality for me. Some issues I can get around by using compatibility mode. But there's an issue with the Flickr upload tool that is apparently an API problem, so not something I can fix with a click.

In fact, this is preventing me from backing up my photos so I will have to revert to IE 8 until it's fixed. IF I can figure out how to revert. Any tips?

Developer Tools (against F12) is similar to firebug add-on for Firefox. Is there anything similar to Firefox's flashgot plugin for IE?

And then some efficiency concerns... requires smart/intelligent memory management very badly:

Like IE8 and even prior ones, the most annoying thing about IE9 is it consume lot of computation cycles to revive back to primary memory from the secondary one (dumb dumping i guess!), if the system was idle for a long time (as compared to firefox and essentially g-chrome)! Can be handled. if optimized version of sateful-snapshot is dumped into the secondary memory in such circumstances.

Conclusion: If I get flashgot substitute for IE9, I shall uninstall FF and never regret. If some agility is introduced in its revival from idle state and the issue connect.microsoft.com/.../604823 is addressed in final release, I shall uninstall Chrome and never regret.

----------------------------------------------------To IE TEAM----------------------------------------------------

Guys, Good Work., regarding performance.

Previously among all MS products i think IE was the poorest one.

But , i Hope U make me feel proud as I am a big MS Fan,

Issues-------------

Currently, Office Live denied to open on IE 9 , it should open.

Compatibility still poor.

Programmers have to still fight with layout compatibility issues b/w IE and non IE browsers.

Please improve IE, otherwise it keeps on loosing it's market share %

Make IE like a Necklace for Windows OS  :)

I Hope You guys will do it.

So the browser is out, but now MS is dead quiet again..  No updates on IEblog, no updates on Exploring IE.. cheesy community engagement at Reddit but with no "meat" and Marketing/PR spin on everything *AGAIN*.  What people love about Firefox/Chrome and other browsers is the fact they can try them out, be engaged with the community, provide feedback and get responses.  When people asked for spell checking they didn't go" there may be a crappy addon for that" they implemented seemless spell checking.   Opera, Firefox, Chrome and every other browser has SPELL CHECK. WHy not IE9? Why is there this all the sudden "quiet" period again? Why isn't there daily/weekly builds available for people to talk about IE good or Bad?  If MS wants community engagement, give us something to engage you on.

@blahism I count 7 posts since the Beta launch over at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie and 2 blogs here.  I don't think that qualifies as being "dead quiet".

Feature trade-offs are a very difficult and painful part of building a product.  Hypothetically, do you implement spell check or a fast JavaScript engine?  Unfortunately there's no answer that's right for everyone other than "build every feature that everyone thinks is useful" and that wouldn't be a good solution either because you'd end up with a very unwieldy product.  We've certainly heard the feedback through many blog posts that spell check is important but we've had to balance that against a lot of the other things that the developer community and customers want.

@abm Thanks for taking time to file issues in Connect.

@StaciaS There's a couple of places you can check :

IE9 Beta Release Notes : go.microsoft.com/fwlink

IE9 Beta Feedback Program : Visit https://connect.microsoft.com, sign in with a Windows Live ID, go to Directory and join the IE Feedback Program.  Fill out the short survey and you can then access the bugs that have been submitted by the community.

James

Hey James I was wondering if there was some plan to make possible (If its not already possible) changing the background in the "new tab", the white is boring me to death. Also, most popular sites keeps resetting itself, is that a "bug" or is there a setting I can change. Thanks.

When i say dead quiet, its dead quit from an outsider perspective. A couple of marketing blog posts at IEblog don't show us where the product is and has gone since the last "milestone" or beta release.

I also question "feature priority" as ignorance.  You're honestly telling me that its an option between spell check and a fast Javascript engine?  I can tell you that "power users" will stick with Chrome/Firefox/Opera because spell checking is built in and people want quick and seemless functionality thereof. The "Beautyoftheweb" isn't just a bunch of pretty stuff, its interacting with it.  

If you guys  can't do a competitive market analysis against your biggest competitors as a feature subset then its probably a good judgement that IE is doomed to always being a day late and a dollar short.

Appreciate the GPU support - bravo

Appreciate the faster jscript engine - bravo

I just can't imagine simple spell checking being an effort that compares to the work put into the two above features so much so that it is chopped off the feature list block. Just who does MS poll on these features?

@blahism Based on feedback from the developer community, our cadence before the release of the Beta was to release updates to our Platform Preview every 8 weeks.  You're judging us very quickly given the Beta has been out for slightly over 2 weeks.  Rest assured that your feedback has been heard loud and clear.

I'm sure this point has already been beat to death and I've already submitted feedback on it as well but my biggest and probably only major gripe with IE 9 Beta is the fact that tabs share the same row as the address bar and there is no option to move the tabs below the address bar in their own row. Especially on narrower screens (4:3) where there isn't much screen real estate to allow the tabs space, even having two or three tabs open makes them really squished. Hopefully this is rectified to at least allow the option to put the tabs in their own row.

Additionally, my other gripe is the unification of the address bar and the search bar. Sometimes I mistype an address and I certainly don't want my default search engine trying to search for my typo, I'd rather it just tell me the page doesn't exist and let me correct the address. I liked having the search bar be its own entity as it was in IE 8.

I know some have said it and I kind of agree with them in that if you could just put in the IE 9 Engine into the IE 8 Interface, I'd be very happy as I never really found anything wrong with IE 8's UI.

If tabs were allowed to be on a 2nd row, then IE 9 would be near perfect for me. If also the search bar were brought back at least as optional, then IE 9 would be perfect for me.

@emena

Thanks for the feedback.  Part of shipping a Beta is listening to feedback from early adopters like yourself and I know our engineering team is listening hard!

IE 9 is most rapidly and wonderful

IE9 has been excellent the last few weeks, although I did experience a problem with Live Mesh Beta Remote Desktop service immediately after installing - svchost grabbing 100% CPU - now disabled.

The only other MAJOR annoyance (enough to put me off using it), is not being able to choose my own download location on each download - if downloading a lot of items, I want to choose and sort location there and then, not have to go sorting out a big pile in the (varying) deafult locations.

This is MAJOR step back, and we should at least have the option to re-enable it.

I agree totally with boma23 not being able to select where to place a download is a step back, I don't get the logic behind that decision. My real problem is that I cant even view my downloads without the IE 9 crashing a dozen times...I tried sending feedback via Windows live assistant but that's not working eventhough I have it installed, that just crashes too. So what alternative do I have to report an issue besides coming to this blog?

@splat

@boma23

IE9 Beta allows you to choose the download location for each download.  I may have missed a subtlety in what you want to do.  Here's an example :

1. Visit www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

2. Click download button

3. Notification bar pops up

4. Click down arrow next to save button and choose Save As

5. Select your download location

Let me know if this helps.

@Pratt...thanks for the reply though it doesn't address the primary issue: There is noooo way for me to open downloads, I get no response from it whatsoever, I can't even run files after they've been downloaded. In addition to the Live Assistant being completely nonresponsive. What can I do to troubleshoot these issues.

@splat When the download completes, the notification bar offers options to "Run", "Open Folder" and "View Downloads".  Are you seeing something different?

@Pratt I see the same thing as everyone else. I just get no response. Not a thing. When I press crtl+l I the browser crashes, when I click on view download/run/save as,ect. I get nothing. The only half solution I've found is to pin a website to the start menu and then try to access my downloads...and of course it only works after it crashes a half dozen times.

@splat

With respect, it sounds like you are not seeing the same thing as everyone else or I'm simply not understanding your issue.  If you could provide feedback through the Send Feedback tool with clear repro steps as well as an explanation of what you think should be happening and what is actually happening, that would be very helpful.

@Pratt with respect I would be happy to provide feedback via the feedback tool, but as I've already mentioned...it (Windows Live ID Sign In Assistant) doesn't work, at all. I get the error telling me to install the software, it directs me to a page to download it, I do (in google chrome) I run the install, and I get a notification telling me I have a newer version installed and errors out. What could have caused this? should I downgrade to 6.5? In regards to the download issue, the problem is as I have stated, anything I download and then click to run or save as or anything else is non responsive, nothing, The only response I get is when I press ctlr+J (what I meant to type last time), and the response is that IE 9 crashes. I mentioned the work around I've found, but I'm not sure as to why it works, albeit haphazardly . I'm only coming to this blog as I have no other way of contacting Microsoft for technical feedback.

I too crashed. Here's a snipping shot.

Loading Java seems to have issues as well.

<iframe title ="Preview" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" style="width:98px;height:115px;padding:0;background-color:#fcfcfc;" src="cid-861ccd2b2a0f9bdb.office.live.com/.../iframe>

cid-861ccd2b2a0f9bdb.office.live.com/.../IE9BetaCrash.zip

juz in case the previous link doesn't work... Tried to disable all addons. uninstalled and reinstalled. same problem. However, if i launch x64 version, it doesn't crash. Just that cannot load the Download dialog.

@splat

To provide the IE team with your feedback, go directly to the IE Feedback Program on Microsoft Connect (connect.microsoft.com/ie).  This is the same location where all entries from the Feedback Tool are logged.  You can use it to view, edit, and comment on bugs, and to see the results of our investigation.  You need to register on Connect to use the Send Feedback tool and the IE Feedback Program. Registering is a quick and easy process described here: connect.microsoft.com/.../content.aspx.  Once registered, you can go directly to the Feedback page (connect.microsoft.com/.../feedback), search for your issue, and submit new feedback if it is not found.  The Feedback page has additional information on the process.

Your feedback is very important to us and much appreciated.  Thank you for taking the time to let us know about your experiences with the IE9 Beta.

@shenlong

Please submit your crash through the built-in Send Feedback tool under the Tools menu OR through the instructions 1 comments above this one.

Actually, with Opera 11 coming with add-ons (including many ported from Firefox and Chrome) I'll be able to say goodbye to IE once and for all. For me, if this IE9 product team attitude continues, it's a shame, but I have to say it, all the good work done under the hood will be ruined by the stubborness concerning the UI aspects. Currently this UI looks like an amateurishly thrown tab bar over some platform preview build, with a small address bar which is insecure by not letting the user see the entire URL.

You guys on the IE product team decided to stop listening to the users again. You won't give the UI flexiblity (options to have a separate tab row, not necessarily by default, but still), disabling by design add-ons in pinned sites, and so much more, making sites dragged on desktop or any folder pinned sites instead of simple url files.

Oh, about those URL files. Not even now you didn't solve the .url file properties meta tab, which won't allow us to tag and rate our favorites, which would make them indexable and searchable in Vista and Windows 7.

I think IE team is terribly wrong and won't listen to the users, which is a terrible damage to the good image Microsoft achieved while building Windows 7. Leave the UI defaulted to your own way but give us the opportunity to tweak it to our own taste. It isn't so hard, really, guys, come on ! Just add some options and you'll make users happy. And one more thing, a question actually : when will you release the next beta version ?

The way IE looks and the way IE team and Microsoft treats geek requests is an involution and not an evolution in user experience, IMHO.

www.askvg.com/download-mozilla-firefox-latest-beta-version - this is a very good example of how Mozilla is listening to user feedback, leaving telemetry science away. Maybe this will ring a bell in IE9 headquarters. Really, folks, it's embarrasing.

Please add an option so that it can automatically restore your previous tabs.  I often have multiple tabs open from my Live Mail RSS feeds on stories I want to read later.  Even the "reopen last session" has mixed behaviours.  If I close my browser with 5 tabs I want to read later, then click on a link in an e-mail, I lose the "last session".  So, you have to bookmark the tab set in order to visit it later which is silly.

I was expecting that ie9 would present a better security password management(like Chrome or better) but it has not occurred. It is the only factor that creates me use other internet explorer.

<a href="http://earthquakevictimsappeal.weebly.com"> leegmoser </a>