Microsoft plans to release a special "compatibility patch" that will temporarily undo some upcoming changes to Internet Explorer.
The patch will accompany the next security update for IE, scheduled for release on April 11, Microsoft said Wednesday. It reverses changes the update makes to how the Web browser handles Web programs called ActiveX controls. These ActiveX tweaks can impact how certain sites display in the browser, the company said.
The ActiveX modifications are designed to shield Microsoft from liability in a high-profile patent dispute with Eolas Technologies and the University of California.
The patch should give Web developers more time to make adjustments that take the IE changes into account. The software maker has recommended that programmers tweak their pages to accommodate the ActiveX change, or else their viewers will have to click an extra time to get to some content, such as Macromedia Flash animations.
Microsoft had said it didn't expect the IE modifications to have much impact on customer experience or partner applications. Yet on Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash., software giant acknowledged that some Web developers are not yet ready to deal with them.
"We did get feedback from some (software) partners and from some enterprise customers that they need a little more time to test and update their applications," Mike Nash, the executive who heads Microsoft's security business, wrote in a posting to a corporate blog.
The compatibility patch is specifically designed for businesses that may have homegrown applications that use ActiveX, a company representative said. It will function until June, when Microsoft plans to release another IE security update that makes the changes permanent, the representative added.
The ActiveX changes are scheduled for delivery on Microsoft's regular patch day on April 11. It may ship sooner if Microsoft rushes other fixes out for a serious security flaw in the browser that is being exploited to attack users of IE 5 and IE 6.
Can they really get out of a so-called patent infringement situation by just making us click one extra time? My Pocket PC already makes me do this and it's annoying! No more IE updates for me (I use Firefox anyway).
Its another case of someone patenting a process that would be obvious. Firefox isn't the answer in this case, once MS folds on this problem the other browsers (Safari, Opera and Firefox) will be targeted next, MS is just the "easy money target.
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