SecurityCenter 9 and IE9 Beta

[RBBrittain]

Ever since installing IE9 Beta, SecurityCenter 9 is blank--much as happened with IE8 Beta in the stickies.  (SiteAdvisor balloons, however, do work in IE9.)  Turning off GPU rendering in IE9 doesn't fix the problem.  Neither did the steps in TS100261 (i.e., re-register JScript & VBScript, uninstall, run MCPR, reinstall); the SecurityCenter 10-like install screens did work, but AT&T still installs SC 9 itself.  IE Content Advisor is disabled, so TS100281 does not apply.  I tried a chat session, but the chat window never appeared so I came here.

I understand (especialy from the past IE8 Beta issue) that McAfee does not officially support beta releases of IE, but even in beta IE9 is far better than IE8.  (Besides, I don't recall IE8 being a public beta like IE9.)  If there's a serious conflict, I'd rather dump McAfee for the time being than IE9.

Is this a known issue McAfee and/or Microsoft is working on?  Considering my install-screen experience, is the solution perhaps upgrading AT&T customers to SC 10.5 (which is apparently inevitable)?

[exbrit]

When IE9 is final then McAfee will support it.  Until then you are on your own when using beta browsers.  There were indeed public betas of both IE7 and IE8 and we couldn't offer support on those either except to advise people to stop using the betas.

That's why beta software should only be installed on a non-production build or a spare partition created just for that purpose.

I doubt that it matters which version of McAfee you have in this regard but I am sure that it is being worked on, meanwhile of course it's a hit-and-miss affair whether or not things work.

That's the 'joy' of beta testing I'm afraid.

If I recall certain beta versions of IE worked OK and others didn't.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 16/09/10 11:00:02 EDT AM

[RBBrittain]

It's my home PC, so I'm comfortable experiencing the "joy" (and pain) of beta testing.  And with IE9, it's mostly joy compared to IE8.

Anyway, I finally got a chat session going; McAfee is aware of the problem and is working on a patch.  Till then, it's either uninstall IE9 Beta (certainly McAfee's official advice) or uninstall McAfee (more likely in my case, though if it's just losing the SC window I might just wait for the patch).

[Dinz · Accepted solution]

Hello RBBrittian,

McAfee does not test or support third-party beta software used in conjunction with McAfee products. By definition, beta software is still in a limited-release or testing phase and often has limited or no support even from the manufacturer. Most manufacturers state that beta software is used at your own risk.

McAfee can only offer support regarding the proper functioning of our products. McAfee cannot guarantee that issues related to how third-party beta software interacts with McAfee products can be resolved. In these circumstances, the beta software may need to be uninstalled.

Until the software has completed its BETA phase we normally do not support them , so we recommend to  remove the beta software.

Regards,

Dinesh K

McAfee Online Community Moderator

[exbrit]

I'm curious what problems you have with IE8 as I find it pretty good, apart from occasional slowness perhaps when compared with Chrome for instance, but I find it a huge improvment over IE7.

[RBBrittain]

Ex_Brit wrote:
I'm curious what problems you have with IE8 as I find it pretty good, apart from occasional slowness perhaps when compared with Chrome for instance, but I find it a huge improvment over IE7.

It was definitely an improvement over IE7, but it was slowing down (especially at startup) to the point that I have occasionally considered switching to Firefox as my default browser.  (I also have the current versions of Opera, Safari & Chrome.)  I also had an unusual bug where many websites (i.e., Walmart) kept redirecting me to their mobile versions in IE8, though they worked fine with Firefox, et al.  IE9 not only took care of the slowness and mobile-redirect issues, but even buggy toolbars I just refuse to give up (i.e., Yahoo! Toolbar--SiteAdvisor's also a toolbar, but it's not the problem) don't tie up IE9 as badly as they did IE8.

I'll wait to see if my scheduled McAfee scan goes ahead tomorrow.  If it does, I'll just wait for either McAfee or Microsoft to fix the issue (surely when IE9 goes gold, if not before); it's not like I need to open SC every day.  If not, I'll uninstall McAfee and use something else (probably MS Security Essentials) till it's fixed.

[exbrit]

I try to avoid Yahoo-anything as I had problems with it's settings, especially Yahoo messenger which kept telling me I was using a mobile phone, which I wasn't.

Finally I realised where to get rid of anything to do with the mention of mobile but then decided to ditch Yahoo.

[owlfan12000]

I understand the reluctance to support Beta software. Given the good press IE9 is getting from sites like the New York Times I would suggest 2 things at a minimum. First, include something in the FAQs that alerts users to the fact that the cause of the blank screens is IE9 beta. Second update the virtual technician so it looks for IE9 beta and alerts users to the problem. I would suggest both options include a link to the microsoft page on how to uninstall IE9 beta.

These solutions would at least alert users to the fact that IE9 is causing the problem. In my case I made the mistake of installing IE9 beta and then Iolo system mechanic 9.5. I spent a lot of time assuming that it was something related to System Mechanic. I know it's stupid to change two things at the same time but I won't be the last one to make that mistake.

[exbrit]

There is supposed to be an announcement regarding IE9 beta appearing on this board, somewhere, sometime soon.

There is a FAQ regarding betas in general which has been posted for quite some time.

HERE.

[owlfan12000]

The key point in my mind is finding a way for someone to connect the symptoms to IE9 beta. FAQs and board postings won't help if you have to search for IE9. They should come up when you search for blank screen or something like that. If you don't access the Security Center screen you may not see the problem for days after installing IE9. Of course finding a workaround to allow McAfee to work with IE9 beta may be the best option. I know, McAfee will never guarantee that it will work but a lot of people are going to try it and fail. They may spend less time adapting to IE9 than they will responding to the problems it causes. Is this also a problem with Security Center 10?