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Internet Explorer

Banner is best used with certain verstions, and with certain security settings. If you are using a Windows environmnet, you should:

Use Internet Explorer, version 6.x or higher,
Block the installation of IE7, and
Modify the Security Level of IE6.

Use Internet Explorer 6

To determine the version of Internet Explorer that you have:

Launch Internet Explorer.
The version must be 6.xxx or higher. To determine the version, go to the Help Menu. Select About Internet Explorer.
Go to http://www.umw.edu/banner/

Notes about Certified Browsers:

Microsoft Internet Explorer v6 – with the Java plug-in
Netscape v7.0x - with Java plug-in
Safari v1.2
Mozilla Firefox – works, but is not certified
Internet Explorer 7 is not certified

Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft Corporation is releasing a new version of its web browser, Internet Explorer version 7.0. Although it is already available for voluntary upgrade, the new browser version soon will be released to the public as part of Microsoft's regularly scheduled "automatic updates." Computer systems that are set to "auto update" will receive this upgrade as soon as Microsoft releases it.

Internet Explorer 7 is not yet certified by the vendor and is therefore not officially supported. It is known not to work consistently for all clients. Users may want to block the automatic download of this application.

At this time, DOIT is recommending that you not install IE 7 yet and that you NOT allow this automatic update to take place.

Automatic Blocking of IE7

The Department of Information Technologies has developed a script that will allow you to automatically block the download of Internet Explorer 7 from your computer. A link to that download is found at:

http://download.umw.edu/ie7block/r

Manual Blocking of IE7

The instructions for manually preventing the download are complex; they are listed below if you’d like to follow them:

Go to this URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4516A6F7-5D44-482B-9DBD-869B4A90159C&displaylang=en
Click the "Download" button to download the patch (This requires Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation; if your system does not have the WGA plug-in you will have to download and install it).
Save IE7BlockerToolkit.EXE some place easy to find (e.g. the desktop).
Run IE7BlockerToolkit.EXE by double clicking the downloaded file.
Select "Yes" to agree to the licensing terms of using the patch.
Select a destination to extract the patch files to (recommended to extract them to a folder on the desktop). Be sure you know where the files were extracted to.
Open a command window by opening the start menu, selecting "Run", typing "cmd" and pressing enter.
In the command window, type "cd pathname_of_extracted_files" where pathname_of_extracted_files is the full pathname of the folder you extracted the patch files to (e.g. "C:\Documents and Setting\Administrator\Desktop\Patch") and press enter.
Now type "IE70Blocker.cmd /B" and press enter.
If you receive the message "The operation completed successfully" then you have successfully blocked Internet Explorer 7 from downloading automatically through Windows Automatic Update

Modify IE Security Level

Internet Explorer’s security level must be set to allow for Banner forms to have query downloads access. To do so:

Open Internet Explorer browser and click on the Tools menu.
Choose Internet Options.
Click on the Security tab.
Click on Local intranet, then click on Custom level and scroll down about one-third of the way. Check the downloads area, be sure that “automatic prompting for file downloads” is enabled. Click OK.
Click on Trusted sites.
Click on the Sites button.
Enter https://*.umw.edu into the Add this web site to the zone area.
Click Ok.
Click on the Custom Level button.
Find downloads about one-third of the way down and make sure it looks like above. Commonly the automatic prompting will be disabled. This may be all you need to do.
Finally, click on the Privacy button and make sure you are set at medium and the block pop-ups is checked at the bottom. (as long as we have the umw.edu sites in the trusted area, this will cover all other pop-ups) then click OK.