You seem to be having a problem differentiating between a software application and a patch for the OS. SP2 was an OS patch, IE7 is an application like firefox. Therefore it shouldn’t adversly affect other system components/software. Of course, M$ likes to blur the distinction between the two so it can try and dominate the browser market.

It’s now playing catchup to firefox. So of course it will feel like it, M$’s policy is to copy, copy, then copy some more from other companies.

You should try linux and open source software, it doesn’t suffer from the M$ curse.

As for problems with working with security software, that shouldn’t come as a surprise, either. Is Microsoft, or any other software manufacturer, now responsible for making their software work with other software packages?? Perhaps Microsoft should reverse engineer McAffee and fix it if it turns out that the problem is not IE? When MS released XP service pack 2 all kinds of problems emerged from internet security software as a result of enhanced security and the upgraded firewall. Almost all of those now work properly with SP2.

I ran the IE7 beta 2 for about 12 hours. While installing I had to make sure that Norton Antivirus was completely turned off. My first reaction was: It’s feels like Firefox. Then I found that some of the toolbars couldn’t be moved, turned off. That’s a real turnoff for me. I can’t stand the address bar at the very top, and would just assume turn it off (I use short cut keys pretty exclusively). The final straw, though, is that IE7 beta 2 doesn’t work well yet with Visual Studio 2005.

Now if ms was claiming ie7 was “done” and was telling everyone to “upgrade” to it, and these problems were occurring, i still wouldn’t be surprised. But it’d be slightly newsworthy at least.