Microsoft (MS) has formally announced the availability of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) for Windows XP SP2 and other Windows environments through the Windows Update Service.  In order to let all internal service providers have time to train their staff for supporting IE7 and application developers have sufficient time to resolve any compatibility problem between IE7 and their application systems, the Computing Services Centre (CSC) has decided to defer the automatic upgrade of IE7 of all campus PCs joining the CityUMD domain (i.e. all Staff LAN and Student LAN PCs) for three months.

As IE7 has significant improvements in performance, stability, security, application compatibility, and others, we hope that users can enjoy all these favorable features without unnecessary delay.   We will monitor the progress of this preparation task and see whether shortening of the blocking period is necessary. 

If Staff LAN users have a necessity to use IE7, they may perform the upgrade manually.  However, users have to check whether this upgrade is reversible or not as the version has not been certified by some of the major application and database vendors. Hence it may still have compatibility problems with some of the web-based systems. 

For those users who had already upgraded to IE7 and wanted to activate application systems (for example, Web Mail) via the CityU Intranet Menu (whether at home or on campus), they should uncheck "Use TLS 1.0", and check "Use SSL 2.0" and "Use SSL 3.0" under the "Advanced" tab of the "Internet Options" in the "Tools" pull down menu.

For further information, please consult the Service Desk.

References:

1. For Microsoft's help and support of Internet Explorer 7, please visit
   http://support.microsoft.com/ph/8722

2. For download of IE7, checklists, support tools and so on, please visit the Internet Explorer Home at
   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

3. Description of Automatic Delivery of IE7
   http://www.microsoft.com/technet/updatemanagement/windowsupdate/
   ie7announcement.mspx