sdfox7 Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, Dave-H said: Hmm, yes I think I'm onto a loser here I'm afraid! Thanks for the suggestion Stephen but I've decided to uninstall Google Chrome Frame. I think the chances of it restoring full functionality to IE8 are pretty poor now, and having two installations of Chrome on my machine has caused other complications, like their determination to share the same profile! It's not the end of the world if some sites don't work in IE8 any more as there are still plenty of alternatives of course. I would like to fix the Windows Help and Support Center window malfunctioning more, but as I guess it's also IE8 in a different skin that's not going to now be easy or maybe even possible either. It is strange that pages that actually still work in IE8 will not now open in the Help and Support Center. I will have to do some more investigation on that! Thanks again, these things are always worth trying, if only for fun! Cheers, Dave. I suspect that this is actually not limited to IE 8, but old versions of IE in general. On Windows 7 Enterprise with IE 9.0.46, I did a quick search for IE 9 compatibility mode: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2536204#!%2Fen-us The link loads correctly in Chrome, but not in IE 9. I think that Microsoft has begun blocking all old browsers, in conjunction with its decision to drop old browser support on 1/12/16. I should note that the CT State University System has decided to stick with IE 9 instead of 11- I assume IE 11 loads these sites without a problem since that is Microsoft's latest version. The system also added Chrome to installed programs last fall, so it's possible they kept IE 9.0 around for compatibility reasons. Edited October 18, 2016 by sdfox7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 6 hours ago, heinoganda said: Meanwhile the website of the Microsoft Update Catalog also works with other Internet browsers. Wow! Well, it didn't, not too long ago, so that what you should really have said is: Microsoft Update Catalog now also works with other Internet browsers, at long last! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jumper Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 (edited) "display : block" is not a problem, it just means give the element its own line and allow it to stretch out across as much of the page as it wants (like a div). "display : inline" is like a span or a (anchor). "display : none" would be a problem as it means "hide and collapse the layout space as if it doesn't exist". "visibility : hidden" would also be a problem as it means "hide but preserve layout space". See: http://learnlayout.com/display.html Edited October 19, 2016 by jumper URL tag is broken again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
submix8c Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 re - MS Update Catalog - indeed good news. FireFox uses it's own DL manager instead of the stinky MS one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 On Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 2:30 PM, sdfox7 said: I tried loading https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-media-player-details.aspx and it failed with IE 8. However, changing "https" to "http" allowed the page to load in IE 8. OK, I just tried this page with Opera. It works; but if I disable TLS 1.2, it fails with "Unable to complete secure transaction." That's probably why https: connections to microsoft.com fail with IE 8 too. IE 8 does not support TLS 1.2. You can go to https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/viewMyClient.html with any browser to see what security protocols, encryption ciphers, etc. your browser supports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 Whenever I've tried that, the "http" has been automatically changed back to "https" and it's failed again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 (edited) Looks like Microsoft enabled HTTP Strict Transport Security as well. That will cause some browsers to turn all http: requests into https: ones. Opera does this, for instance. Oddly, I just tried https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-media-player-details.aspx with IE 8 and it worked! So I went back and tried with Opera again, and now it falls back to TLS 1.1 if I disable TLS 1.2. I swear it didn't do that yesterday! BTW, make sure you have the latest IE 8 security fixes. Use the POSReady 9 registry hack if necessary. Edited December 7, 2016 by Mathwiz Add line about IE 8 security fixes; fix typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted December 8, 2016 Author Share Posted December 8, 2016 That link works for me too in IE8, and in Opera (both version 12.18 and version 36). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 I had totally missed the 12.18 update to Opera. Thanks! Now I can use Opera 12 with those annoying Web sites that only support Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral key exchange. (They used to just give me the Unable to Complete Secure Transaction message and I had to go to another browser.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted December 9, 2016 Author Share Posted December 9, 2016 Glad you found it! It was an update for security protocols, and the main thing it cured for me was that Opera 12.17 kept on suddenly shutting down all the time for no apparent reason, which was very annoying as you can imagine, and that was something to do with security issues, which were fixed in 12.18. I'm not holding my breath for any other updates to Opera 12 though sadly! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathwiz Posted December 9, 2016 Share Posted December 9, 2016 Well, me neither; sadly, so many web sites seem to flummox Opera 12 now. Facebook doesn't really work very well with it anymore. Have to use Firefox. But I still prefer Opera 12's interface to the new browser "look" that has somehow become the standard from Firefox to Chrome to Opera 15-36. And 12 still works fine with a lot of sites, including many forum/board sites like this one. I'm glad to hear 12.18 stopped those random crashes. I haven't seen one in a while, but I used to get them a LOT on my Win 7 machine at home. (I always suspected they had something to do with Flash; they seemed to stop for me once I got to Flash 23.) But either way, I needed the 12.18 security updates because some https: sites just wouldn't connect to 12.17 any more. Anyhow, I seem to have drifted off-topic. I hope Microsoft leaves their site where it will work with TLS 1.0 and 1.1. I just tested it, and the WMC link above even works with a browser as old as Firefox 3.5! You really should use TLS 1.2 if your browser has it, but most of the time there's no reason to force it on folks using older browsers like IE 8. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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