[Lindsay649]

Downloaded the Internet Explorer 8 Beta. Boy was that a mistake........it was totally unstable on my computer eventhough I did meet the requirements for the new browser. Played with it for a day or so but found it very frustrating. The biggest problem was trying to get rid of it and go back to Explorer 7........finally a google search brought me an answer........the first time I ended up with no browser.......which makes it difficult to get onto the internet. Did a system restore and still ended up without a browser. Did another system restore and got back the IE 8.........really thought that things did disappear when removed. Ended up removing IE 8 through the add/remove area. Restarted and lo and behold IE 7 was there. Not sure why it was not the first time. Everything is now back to normal......no more experimenting with Beta downloads for me.

 

[tablo]

Beta can be bit scary but not most times.

 

[malam]

I tried IE8 Beta for a couple of days too but had it removed. The changes are not worth the hassle at this beta stage. The objective of having the beta version out there is so that potential problems could be identified and corrected. Unless you are willing to experiment and feed back problems to Microsoft, leave the beta version alone.

 

[Nuje]

In the file manager ("Windows Explorer", or explorer.exe), I'm pretty sure you can enter a http:// as the path, it'll take you to that web page.

Windows explorer and Internet Explorer are interchangeable - you can enter a file path in IE; and a URL in Explorer.

 

[asif9t9]

This is more than a beta. It's a release candidate. Doesn't that mean it should be pretty stable?

 

[PlaceHolder]

Careful with IE... some program with embedded access to it will break on a beta

One word of advise on beta software, that will be particularly relevant at this [tax] time of year. Last year I had MAJOR troubles filing my taxes... it turned out to be because I had installed a beta of IE on my system. When I un-installed the beta, I was able to get the tax software to work as advertised.

This presumably occurs because MS believes that the browser is part of the operating system, and when you install a new beta version, its kinda like getting a patch or upgrade to your OS. The tax software uses the web browser to drive the pages its displays (I assume the tax software is actually generating HTML and embedding the IE as part of the tax program to display this HTML.)

Anyway, buyer beware on beta software... if you use beta software you have to be willing to diagnose issues like this with little outside support... the tax software manufacture was no help at all, the error I had did not point me to suspect IE (at that point I wouldn't have guessed that IE was involved with a tax program.) When I finally figured it out, the tax software manufactured basically scolded me for running beta software while expecting support!!

 

[buchpteclare]

IE-8 beta

I installed the program on my laptop two weeks ago. (Runnig XP home) - no problems at all. Once in a while a page will not display properly - but the Compatibility View setting fixes that quickly. So far - I like the program.

 

[KingBuzzo]

its very fast and seems to handle flash on vista better as well (compared to 7)

 

[tablo]

I think IE8 looks dirty on XP, but clean on Vista. So it is definitely designed for Vista.