I have posted this article in response to the many people who have purchased a new computer with Windows Vista pre-installed (Give Ubuntu 8.04 a try. You will not regret it). Many people use their home computers to access work email. Many people access web-mail through a .NET interface using IE 6. It’s almost mandatory to use the IE6 browser to get full functionality out of the web-mail interface.

Having bought a computer with IE7 installed you will notice accessing your web-mail has changed. IE6 and IE7 do not render or display the interface the same, let alone give the user the same functionality… and that is IF you can login in using IE7.

So you’ve called your IT team at work and they will tell you, “Sorry, we do not support IE7. Good luck.”

So you try to install IE6 onto your brand new computer. No luck. It will not let you. So you try to un-install IE7 and revert back to IE 6. Vista will not let you. Now your thinking, why is this happening to me. Well have to no fear.

There is a solution.

You can use FireFox (a far superior browser) to access your web-mail just like you used to.

Installing the extension

Go to http://www.firefox.com to install FireFox onto your computer if do do not have it installed already.

With FireFox installed on your system, click on the link below and add the extension.

Internet Explorer (IE) Firefox Extension 

Restart Firefox. Right click on the tool bar at the top (in a blank spot beside where it says ‘help’) and click customize from the menu options.

Scroll down to the bottom until you see a button called ‘IE Tab’. Drag it to your toolbar (beside the other icons at the top).

Close the customization window. Your toolbar should now look something like this.

Using the new extension

That was the hard part. Now you can just use the feature shown here below.

Go to the site requiring you to use IE 6. Click on the IE tab now on your menu bar. Your page should now be like it was using IE 6 with all the same functionality. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below and I will get back to your promptly.

Categories: browsers, computers, email
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