Andrei DANEASA

Microsoft has just released (on February 28th) a new update to Internet Explorer 6 for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) and for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

This update changes the way in which Internet Explorer handles some Web pages that use ActiveX controls. Examples of programs that use ActiveX controls include the following:

• Adobe Reader
• Apple QuickTime Player
• Macromedia Flash
• Microsoft Windows Media Player
• Real Networks RealPlayer
• Sun Java Virtual Machine

After you install this update, you cannot interact with ActiveX controls from certain Web pages until these controls are enabled. To enable an ActiveX control, manually click the control. There are also techniques that Web developers can use to update their Web pages.

Microsoft recently lost a legal battle with a patent holder about the way Internet Explorer displays OBJECTs and EMBEDs in webpages. Microsoft then decided to update its Internet Explorer browser with changes requiring user input to display and activate ActiveX based media.

It means users have to click the object first in order to activate its functions.

The behavior is the following:

It is a real shot for Macromedia (Adobe), because Flash is the most frequently used technology from the entire above list. Think a little bit: if a website is entirely made in Flash, then all the content is disabled until the first click; if a website has its navigation made in Flash, for click-ing the menu you must first activate the navigation.

Fortunately, the community found some solutions to this problem. Even Macromedia (Adobe) has provided an official solution:
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/activecontent/articles/devletter.html

Other several resources related to this new “feature” are:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912945
http://www.amarasoftware.com/flash-problem.htm
http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/03/29/423560.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/…
http://blog.deconcept.com/2005/12/15/internet-explorer-eolas-changes-and-the-flash-plugin/

Finally, I must notice that a cross-platform technology was murdered by the most common browser. Let’s be honest, not all the website owners will modify their applications to deal with this behavior. Anf if they do, who guarantee that Microsoft will not block all the above solutions in their next update to Internet Explorer???

Andrei
http://www.webxpert.ro