how to downgrade Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 5.5

P

PA Bear

You can uninstall IE6 (SP1) via Add/Remove Programs, returning to your
previous IE version (if you saved the data)...but you *must* first uninstall
any Win2K Service Packs installed *after* you installed IE6 (SP1).

Example:

You were running Win2K SP2 (which came with IE 5.01SP2) > You then installed
IE6 SP1 > You then installed Win2K SP3 and then SP4.

You must uninstall, in order, (1) SP4, (2) SP3, and then (3) IE6 SP1 to
return to IE 5.01 SP2. From there, you could upgrade to IE5.5 (SP1 or SP2).

Clear as mud, eh?
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP

WinXP SP2: What's New for Internet Explorer and Outlook Express
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/ieoeoverview.mspx

What You Should Know About Spyware
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/devioussoftware.mspx

AumHa Forums
http://forum.aumha.org
 
S

Shree

Thats excellent, but i ran into another problem.
Accidentally your example is my exact setup, i unistalled
SP4 but now i dont have add/remove option for SP3 and
SP2.

After unistalling SP4 now i have the IE SP1 poped-up
under add/remove. When I try to uninstall, I get a pop-up
with three options. 1)Add a component 2)Repair IE 3)
Restore the Previous Windows Configuration. But only 2nd
option is available. As you know i shd get 3rd option
avail to me.

Thanks
Shree
 
P

PA Bear

Did you install SP2 and then SP3 *after* installing IE6 (SP1), Shree?

If you did not save your Previous Configuration when you installed IE6 SP1,
you will have to reinstall Win2K (SP1?) to return to pre-IE6 state.

I am crossposting this reply to a Win2K-specific newsgroup. All
respondents, please continue the crossposting.
 
G

Guest

I guess I installed IE6 SP1 after SP3. I dont know
whether i can reinstall Win2k SP1 now, but im going to
try now, will let you know

Thanks for your help
Shree
 
P

PA Bear

Please make sure you crosspost your replies to
microsoft.public.win2000.general as well as to IE6 Browser.

If you installed IE6 SP1 after installing SP3, you should indeed get the 3
options you did. If you chose not to save your Previous Configuration, only
the Repair or Add a Component options would be available to you.

Best of luck & let us know how you make out. When you do, perhaps you'll
tell us why you *want* to uninstall IE6 and install IE5.5?
 
S

Shree

Well, recently at my work we bought a new application
which will work only on IE5.5 (unfortunately ): )

There seems to be no way i can get back to original OS
install, since the SP's have been installed with "Do Not
Archive" option. After install n remove of SP3, i couldnt
install either SP1 or SP2. Right now im installing Win2k
OS as an upgrade.

Thanks
Shree
 
S

Shree

Win2k upgrade fixed my problem while keeping all other
drivers and appilcations on the system. It installed
IE5.01.

Thanks for all your help PA Bear
Shree
 
P

PA Bear

YW, Shree, and best of luck.
--
~PA Bear
Win2k upgrade fixed my problem while keeping all other
drivers and appilcations on the system. It installed
IE5.01.

Thanks for all your help PA Bear
Shree
 
R

Robert Aldwinckle

Shree said:
Well, recently at my work we bought a new application
which will work only on IE5.5 (unfortunately ): )

I meant to reply to this earlier and forgot. Sorry.
FWIW you may find that the only thing that the app is looking for
is an IE55 User-Agent string. If that's the case, you could run
IE6sp1 but just override its User-Agent string.

The best way to do that would be by intercepting the requests that IE
makes for your problem app. E.g. using a proxy filter program such
as ProxOmitron.

A less flexible method would be to do a registry modification which
forced IE to construct and send the desired string. If necessary
you could provide a toggle script so the the custom User-Agent
string is active only at the appropriate time.

Unfortunately the documented way to modify User-Agent specifies an
obsolete implementation. You can get hints about the new implentation
from Jesper Ohlsson [MSFT] reply to me last year:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=...+author%3Aaldwinckle+group%3Amicrosoft.*.ieak

<quote>
There has been changes to urlmon.dll file regarding this behavior.
You should be able to use the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent

In here you can for example add a string called 'Version' and it will
replace your current IE version info.
</quote>

This is a bit cryptic but it is enough of a hint to in conjunction with
RegMon to figure out what needs to be done to make IE construct
a changed User-Agent string. If necessary you could find out
exactly what an IE55 browser sends by entering in its Address bar

javascript:navigator.userAgent

(note the odd capitalization of the A and lower casing of the u.)

However, I suspect that all you may really need is to have it send
MSIE 5.5 instead of MSIE 6.0 and the rest can be left unchanged.


Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

There seems to be no way i can get back to original OS
install, since the SP's have been installed with "Do Not
Archive" option. After install n remove of SP3, i couldnt
install either SP1 or SP2. Right now im installing Win2k
OS as an upgrade.

....
 

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