Filed under: Internet, Troubleshooting
A Microsoft Catch-22
Get a load of this. I try to use the festering bowl of pus that is Internet Explorer 5 as little as possible but keep it around for those few websites that require Internet Explorer. However, I support thousands of users who do use IE5 regularly. Most of them simply don't know any better and continue to use IE5 installed on their systems despite the superior alternatives that exist. I even install these alternatives on their machines, but like Pavlov's dogs, they are conditioned to repeat their behavior. Ah, but I digress.A few years ago, Microsoft started making http://www.msn.com the default homepage for their installations of Internet Explorer 5. I didn't personally like the move but at least I knew how to change my default homepage. The majority of my users do not know how to do this and so end up, just as Microsoft planned, staring at msn.com every time they launch their browsers.
Now, this is relatively harmless behavior until you take into account a change that Microsoft made either late last week or sometime this weekend. They've made a change to http://www.msn.com that crashes Internet Explorer 5 for the Macintosh. Yup, that's right...Microsoft has changed the coding on the default homepage for their IE5 browser on the Mac that crashes the very browser in question. And it gets worse. Since the only easy way to change the default homepage in IE5 is to do it in the browser itself (in the Preferences) and the browser is crashing with a spinning beachball of death (SBOD) when you launch it, there's now a classic Catch-22. How can users change the homepage to something else if you have to do it in the browser, but the browser crashes loading the page?
Fortunately, there is a way around this. You can hit the Command and period keys immediately after launching IE5 to stop the page from loading and therefore stop the browser from locking up. Then you can go to the Internet Explorer menu and select Preferences. Click on "browser display" in the list and you'll be able to change IE5's default homepage to something other than msn.com.
I've tested this on Macs running Mac OS X versions 10.2.8, 10.3.9, and 10.4.3. Internet Explorer 5 on all of them behaves exactly the same way, crashing trying to load the msn.com homepage. Discontinued browser or not, I feel it's inexcusable for Microsoft to change their browser's default homepage without testing it against all the latest versions of their own browser for each platform. Congratulations Microsoft for reaching a new level of cluelessness I've never seen before. Way to go.
Updates:
11-01-05, 8:40am: Microsoft has changed msn.com to fix this problem.
11-01-05, 1:53pm: Now msn.com is crashing IE5 again.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Xenedar said 2:48AM on 11-01-2005
Microsoft are b@st@rds with the default homepage too. It's encoded into Apple's internet preferences file (something like com.apple.internetconfig.plist), and it's stored per-user AND per-machine (possibly just per-user).
I could never find a way to pre-load my users' IE with our intranet homepage - IE simply refused, because of this encoding thing. So now, the first time a user ever logs into one of our Macs, the login script installs a specially configured com.apple.internetconfig.plist which is set to not load any page on startup. Maybe I can't stop IE from using msn.com as a homepage, but I can stop IE from loading anything period.
To Damien Barrett: don't just install other browsers - delete IE while you're there. Or maybe write an AppleScript called "Internet Explorer" with the "e" icon on it, which loads Safari or Firefox instead. I fully intend to delete IE from every one of my users' machines ASAP. Unfortunately, a couple of our databases "require" it, which I think means the company couldn't be bothered testing anything newer than 4 years old, and is assuming IE works based on it having the same name as the Windows browser. The second these databases are certified for Safari or a Mozilla derivative, I'm pulling IE immediately (and I can do so to every machine in one hit, due to our software deployment system, which is nifty...).
Reply
Mojo said 3:50AM on 11-01-2005
It didn't crash when i tried it. 10.3.9, iBook G3 800Mhz.
I wonder what version of IE5 you guys seeing this behavior are using?
Reply
Seth van der Meer said 4:39AM on 11-01-2005
hm, it did not crash on my Pbook, 1.5 ghz, 2gb, 10.4.3. But that doesn't really matter. MSN should upgrade all together to a new browser, since many of the IE only sites still don't work with IE 5 on the mac...
Reply
Nick said 5:07AM on 11-01-2005
Works fine here too. Pb 1.25 Mac OSX 10.4.3
Reply
Evil Dave said 7:44AM on 11-01-2005
Works for me, using IE 5.2.2 on 10.4.2. Looks like a mistake which they've fixed.
Reply
Joe said 7:37AM on 11-01-2005
So whatever Microsoft did yesterday, they fixed today. Not crashing here either.
But why is everyone missing the obvious for opening IE without going to the home page? If it is set as the default browser, just click a link in your e-mail or somewhere else to launch with that link as the first page that opens. Or double click an html document or ".webloc" file, or drag it onto the IE icon if IE is not the default.
Reply
Julian said 7:47AM on 11-01-2005
Doesn't crash for me either -- 10.4.3 on a 12" PB, 10.3.9 on a Mac Mini. Fires up, runs msn.com without difficulty.
Reply
Damien Barrett said 8:48AM on 11-01-2005
Yup, somemone at msn.com is paying attention and has fixed the problem. Honest mistake or not, it's still an inexcusable mistake that's caused a lot of people lots of grief. You wouldn't believe the number of phone calls and tech support calls I dealt with on Monday related to this issue.
Reply
Matt said 9:12AM on 11-01-2005
TUAW brings microsoft to its knees!!!! Victory!
Reply
Cecil said 9:32AM on 11-01-2005
Change the hosts file in the etc directory (or wherever it is in OSX). add a line that reads
127.0.0.1 www.msn.com
Then when IE launches it will never reach the page. You can then change the homepage, edit your hosts file again to remove that line (that is, if you ever want to visit msn.com again)
This works because the computer will parse the hosts file before it checks with DNS for the IP of www.msn.com. Pointing it to localhost(127.0.0.1) will send the browser nowhere unless you are actually running a web server on your machine.
Reply
Penginkun said 10:37AM on 11-01-2005
So you empty both barrels on Microsoft when they break a browser that hasn't been updated in years and whose user base is probably .00005% of Internet users, but when the FIX said problem you just say, "*yawn*, oh they fixed it. Whatever."
Not even a, "Kudos to Microsoft for responding to the needs of such a tiny fraction of their users"?
They fixed the problem. I think after the post you wrote they should get a little more than a one-line addendum at the bottom of the post.
Reply
random said 9:37AM on 11-02-2005
Sad thing is a lot of users still use Microsoft IE in Mac. I used to get a ton of calls on it at my job despite the fact that Safari is more stable, supports tabbed browsing, and is faster. The IE browser hasn't been updated in ages. Even now, the default page barely works in MS IE.
It never crashed my IE but it looks like total crap now. The text is teeny and smooshed towards the middle. And as always, none of the article links ever render properly.
Reply
Damien Barrett said 11:03AM on 11-01-2005
Yes, I unloaded both barrels. My phone was ringing off the hook all yesterday because "my computer wasn't working." Microsoft's failure to verify the most basic of compatilibilities with their msn.com homepage was causing huge headaches for thousands of users.
Yes, Microsoft fixed the issue with msn.com. Yes, IE5 sucks. Yes, I updated the page. But no, I'm not going to offer them kudos. If they hadn't changed IE5's default home page to msn.com in the first place and buried the preference in an obsure file in the OS, this problem wouldn't have happened in the first place.
The vast majority of computer users have no freaking clue how things work on their systems and so when something doesn't work, it must be the computer. I had users cursing Apple and Mac OS X for something that has zero bearing on either Apple or Mac OS X. It was entirely Microsoft's fault for not testing their website properly, and it was particularly ironic and boneheaded that both elements involved belong to Microsoft. So, why should I lighten up?
I'd be just as critical if Apple released and update to Safari and also changed their default homepage to something that crashed the browser.
Reply
timothy said 11:43AM on 11-01-2005
I agree that everyone should change to Safari or Firefox, but some sites require IE, and Firefox pretending to be it doesn't cut it. I went through that all day yesterday with some coworkers that had to get to an IE only site, and Firefox would only get part of the way thru the site before all the text was garbled. Crappy, but thanks for the post on fixing IE, I forwarded it to everyone at work so they could fix it. (I, stupidly, didn't think of it yesterday. I knew we had to change the default page, but couldn't think of how to stop it. Damn hangovers)
Reply
Zoob said 12:17PM on 11-01-2005
I ran into this yesterday because, in the past, my companies remote login software would not work through Firefox or Safari. I desperately needed to get logged on and did not want to have to make the trek all the way into the office for 20 minutes of work. After fiddling with IE (read as removing, reinstalling, even rebooting) for 10 minutes, I was ready to admit defeat and go burn some gas. But wait, maybe I should just try Safari for grins & giggles. Shazam! Either my company's recent upgrades or the 10.4.3 upgrade has made the "MAGIC" happen. My deepest and sincerest thanks to Microsoft for finally freeing me from their software shackles by forcing me to discover the key had appeared next to me. THANK YOU!
Reply
Shan Younker said 12:11PM on 11-01-2005
MSN crashes Explorer on OS 9 too!
Reply
Neil said 12:02PM on 11-01-2005
This kept me hopping yesterday but it was a good excuse to force my users to go to our school district site as a homepage. By the way, I used apple-w to just close the window immediately instead of apple-period.
We have to keep IE for some websites we have to use. Otherwise I'd be the first to drop it.
Even if they've fixed the problem, they'll change the page again at a later date and the problem will likely reoccur.
Reply
David said 12:08PM on 11-01-2005
I keep 2 computers for that very reason. I have a Dell notebook w/ all my business stuff on it, and I keep my Macintosh Microsoft-free (and use it for graphics, music etc.)
Reply
Penginkun said 12:11PM on 11-01-2005
So what, MS can't make a mistake, is that it? They have to be 100% perfect, all the time? And don't forget: you're taking out on the entire company what's most likely the fault of one person, their webmaster.
Reply
Brian Smith said 12:16PM on 11-01-2005
Oh, c'mon folks. MacIE 5 hasn't seen any real development since they pulled the plug on it in March 2000. It had a little bit of crash fixing for OSX, but nothing more.
It's not a piece of shit - it was a fabulous browser for OS9 turned out by a tiny and dedicated team... HALF A DECADE AGO.
It's likely that MSN doesn't test with it at all. People running obsolete software aren't the sort of folks who affect your profit margin, you know? How's Apple doing in supporting iTunes for OS9? That came out years after MacIE 5.
If you want to bitch about anything, it's only that Microsoft doesn't care about Macintoshes. Well, duh. That's like Kanye saying Dubya doesn't care about black people.
Reply