A wonderful IE6 feature has been dropped in IE7

[Guest]

PA Bear:

You are correct -- except they appear as static preview thumbnails to the
right of the IE page. I run Windows 2000 Pro SP4 (due to work application
requirements) and can't upgrade to IE7 which is incompatible with 2000 Pro,
according to the Microsoft gurus themselves.

Those vital thumbnails have been (maybe unintentionally) removed by one of
the updates furnished as downloads by Microsoft for IE, either KB938127 or
KB937143.

Microsoft engineers are trying to find out how and why it happened. Nothing
they have done so far on my computer through remote Microsoft control has
corrected the problem. Uninstalling the updates does not work. Reverting back
to IE5 SP2 and redownloading IE6 SP1 doesn't work either.

The Microsoft engineers have been working on the problem for 2 days now, and
so far with no success! Those thumbnails are the only way I can work with
Internet Explorer due to my handicap. Without them, I am lost! Wish me luck.

Thanks for understanding.

 

[Leonard Grey]

I've been hovering and hovering, in IE 6 and IE 7, and all I see is the
stored URL, which appears both as a tooltip-type callout and in the
browser's status bar

Regardless, I /think/ I know what you're referring to - something that,
to me, sounds very different from others have been describing: When you
add a web page as a Favorite (or as a Bookmark in Firefox), the title of
the Favorite (or Bookmark) is whatever the page designer coded, which
typically amounts to sales pitch for the web site.

I routinely edit this information - which I personally find to be a
waste of space - and give the Favorite or Bookmark my own name. If I
leave the title of a Favorite alone, hovering over the Favorite displays
the rest of the web page designer's blurb.

/IF/ this is what you have in mind, I can confirm that it still works
the same way in IE 7.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Jethro:

Just for fun I reduced the home page of USA Today to 10% of it's
original size, which is still a lot bigger than a thumbnail display in
Windows Explorer. Couldn't make out a damn thing. Which leads me to
wonder why anyone would want to look at a thumbnail sized web page even
if they could.

 

[Guest]

Leonard, PA Bear, and Jethro:

Apparently I am talking about a different kind of thumbnail. The ones I am
talking about used to appear on the right side my screen window after a Live
Search in IE6 SP1, using Windows 2000 Professional SP4. Now after an Internet
Search all I see are names of sites on the left side of the screen. The right
side is a complete blank.

I have never used XP or Vista, so I don't know what the search results
looked like for users of the Operating Systems.

With my IE6 and Windows 2000 PRO, I do a search on the left hand-side of the
screen, not on the address line. The search has nothing to do with Favorites,
which is another tab on my toolbar.

Sorry to be so stubborn, but my lively-hood depends on those pesky thumbnails.

 

[PA Bear]

If you've got an open Support Incident with MS, stick with the MS engineers,
MOL. Further replies to this thread may only serve to confuse you. Let us
know what happens, please.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Hmmmm, perhaps what you mean is Live Search results? If so, I think you
have a question about Live Search, not Internet Explorer. In any case I
will bow out, since I haven't used Live Search with IE 6. (And to be
honest, I don't use it with IE 7.)

 

[=?Windows-1252?Q?JethroUK=A9?=]

Well the thumbnails don't show the whole web page (probably because there is
no definition of a size as such) but instead show the top/left about 1/2
page (A5 ish size) which is actually very easy to see - i'm just going to
have to start up my ol' PC to show you

 

[Guest]

Leonard:

Where do I post questions on Live Search? I never selected Live Search as my
search engine in IE6... It just appeared after a Microsoft update to Internet
Explorer!

I used to use Search Assistant and it executed My Web Search. Now that
choice is gone. Even if I select Search Assistant, I still get Live Search.

My guess is that Microsoft did not realize what would happen to those of us
that need the thumbnails returned by the search engine in IE and just removed
them. A colleague who had the same problem, reinstalled IE6 and every "Q"
update, but none of the KB updates. That worked and he can now see the
thumbnails again.

I am not sufficiently competent to do that on my own, nor have the necessary
CDs since my IBM computer came pre-loaded with the software.

Please let me know where I should post my question about Live Search. I will
thank you from the bottom of my heart if someone could help me.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Leonard Grey]

Like I said, I've not used Live Search so I don't know exactly where to
go for help. You might try here:
http://support.live.com/eform.aspx?...lsupport_home_options_form_byemail&ct=eformts

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Hmmmm, perhaps what you mean is Live Search results? If so, I think you
have a question about Live Search, not Internet Explorer.

My guess is it *was* a feature of MSN which has been dropped from
Live Search. E.g. using Live Search's MSN tab finds:

<title>Web Search Help: Troubleshoot issues with Search Preview</title>
http://search.msn.com/docs/help.aspx?t=SEARCH_TROU_ProblemsViewingThumbnails.htm

(Live Search - on MSN tab for
thumbnails search
)

So apparently the correct description of the feature instead of thumbnails
is "Search Preview"?

Well, clearly this page is obsolete because it talks about Search Assistant
which AFAIK was killed over a year ago. E.g. people were moaning about
that loss of functionality in ie6.browser NG in a long involved thread titled
"Search Assistant Not Working" in March of 2006 (according to my Sent Items)
Unfortunately neither the Google nor the Microsoft archive show any sign
of that thread. I guess nobody bothered voting for it... ; ]


(More...)

....

The Explorer Search bar (aka Search pane) is now only used by search sites
which support it. In May of the same year here is what I was saying about that:

<quote>
From a previous post to this newsgroup about this matter:

<paste>
Subject: Re: enable Search Pane
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 03:01:35 -0500


Use this site (courtesy Rob Parsons) for testing

http://www.iecustomizer.com/iepanels/




I think she's beating a dead horse... ; )

E.g. as Rob's site shows you *can* still use the Search bar the way MSN used
to support it; you just can't use it there any more, which makes it essentially
obsolete IMO.

Oops. #211 looks close (Provider: *, Keyword: *MSN, Language: English,
Country: USA) but it doesn't have any customization link which might be
how the Search Preview feature gets enabled.


FYI

Robert
---

 

[Guest]

Robert:

Alas! If Microsoft has eliminated the search preview thumbnails and I am,
indeed, beating a dead horse, I am in a lot of trouble. I will continue to
try to work with the Microsoft engineers and see if they understand that the
functionality was necessary for those of us with handicaps.

Although I had Live Search installed without any notification from Microsoft
through one of their updates, at the time it did not make me lose the
thumbnails. That came later, on an update I just installed which was dated
08/14/07.

I believe that eliminating functionality should have been clearly announced
when updates were noted. I read all provided with every update and install
them manually, to avoid getting something I do not want. If one of the
updates mentioned the loss of the search preview thumbnails, I wouldn't have
installed it!

We'll see where this ends up at!!!!! And thanks for the explanation.

Hmmmm, perhaps what you mean is Live Search results? If so, I think you
have a question about Live Search, not Internet Explorer.

My guess is it *was* a feature of MSN which has been dropped from
Live Search. E.g. using Live Search's MSN tab finds:

<title>Web Search Help: Troubleshoot issues with Search Preview</title>
http://search.msn.com/docs/help.aspx?t=SEARCH_TROU_ProblemsViewingThumbnails.htm

(Live Search - on MSN tab for
thumbnails search
)

So apparently the correct description of the feature instead of thumbnails
is "Search Preview"?

Well, clearly this page is obsolete because it talks about Search Assistant
which AFAIK was killed over a year ago. E.g. people were moaning about
that loss of functionality in ie6.browser NG in a long involved thread titled
"Search Assistant Not Working" in March of 2006 (according to my Sent Items)
Unfortunately neither the Google nor the Microsoft archive show any sign
of that thread. I guess nobody bothered voting for it... ; ]


(More...)

....

The Explorer Search bar (aka Search pane) is now only used by search sites
which support it. In May of the same year here is what I was saying about that:

<quote>
From a previous post to this newsgroup about this matter:

<paste>
Subject: Re: enable Search Pane
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 03:01:35 -0500


Use this site (courtesy Rob Parsons) for testing

http://www.iecustomizer.com/iepanels/




I think she's beating a dead horse... ; )

E.g. as Rob's site shows you *can* still use the Search bar the way MSN used
to support it; you just can't use it there any more, which makes it essentially
obsolete IMO.

Oops. #211 looks close (Provider: *, Keyword: *MSN, Language: English,
Country: USA) but it doesn't have any customization link which might be
how the Search Preview feature gets enabled.


FYI

Robert

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Robert:

Alas! If Microsoft has eliminated the search preview thumbnails and I am,
indeed, beating a dead horse, I am in a lot of trouble. I will continue to
try to work with the Microsoft engineers and see if they understand that the
functionality was necessary for those of us with handicaps.

I think you need to understand that you are dealing with two very different
organizations. The original search functionality was provided by MSN.
MSN has changed over the years. IE has had to adapt to those changes.

One extreme example of those changes is that originally there was
a feature in the Search Options called Just go... which was implemented
by MSN by forwarding to a search service called RealNames. That's what
allowed people to just enter domain names in their Address bar and actually
open a relevant page. Now, provided Search from the Address bar is enabled
it just results in a search with the default search provider.

Although I had Live Search installed without any notification from Microsoft
through one of their updates, at the time it did not make me lose the
thumbnails. That came later, on an update I just installed which was dated
08/14/07.

I believe that eliminating functionality should have been clearly announced
when updates were noted. I read all provided with every update and install
them manually, to avoid getting something I do not want. If one of the
updates mentioned the loss of the search preview thumbnails, I wouldn't have
installed it!

I think you're just noticing coincidences. Unless you just recently installed
IE7 I doubt that updates had anything to do with your observations.

To get a better idea of what functionality you had been using please
use the Search Assistant Custom... link and tell us what options
you would have chosen:

E.g. here's the one for EN-US:

http://ie.search.msn.com/en-us/srchasst/srchcust.htm

BTW note the domain name in the above URL.

We'll see where this ends up at!!!!! And thanks for the explanation.

Unfortunately, I think you're starting this quest far too late.
Thanks to Google and Microsoft's web news archives apparently being
culled I doubt if we can even reconstruct an accurate history of the feature
you are looking for. What I'm giving you is mostly my recollections or my
reports of my analysis and observations about the Search Assistant feature.
I don't know of any source which is a definitive summary of it, let alone what
currently remains of it.


HTH

Robert
---

 

[N. Miller]

IE6 thumbnails !!!!!!!!!

I don't think many people used it which prolly explains why it was dropped -
If you've never used it:

Are you speaking of "FavIcons"? (Favorite Icons)

Open your 'favorites' folder in windows
Choose View>Thumbnails
Wait a few seconds for the thumbnails to initialise (only once) and hey
presto!
Now isn't that the greatest?

Never used that feature, don't miss it.

I used to have a shortcut to my favorites on my desktop just for that reason

Alas IE7 poo-pooed on it - all i get now is blue 'e's (

Interesting. My MSIE7 Favorites list has a FavIcon for eBay. I suppose one
could download the icons, or find them in the TIF, and save them to a
folder, then use the "Properites" feature of the item in the list to change
the icons.

I have found no benefit to IE7 so can I install IE6 on Vista?

I believe the primary benefit of MSIE7 is enhanced security. If you can
install Windows XP on that computer, you can go back to MSIE6. AFAIK,
Windows Vista will only run MSIE7.

--
Norman
~Shine, bright morning light,
~now in the air the spring is coming.
~Sweet, blowing wind,
~singing down the hills and valleys.

 

[Guest]

Robert:

I am running IE6, not IE7, so I cannot see the information you requested, or
else I don't know to look for it. I run Windows 2000 Professional, SP4 and
cannot change to another operating system due to employer's constraints.

Perhaps you are thinking of another OS or else are much more technically
advanced than I am, of course.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Robert Aldwinckle]

Robert:

I am running IE6, not IE7, so I cannot see the information you requested, or
else I don't know to look for it. I run Windows 2000 Professional, SP4 and
cannot change to another operating system due to employer's constraints.

Perhaps you are thinking of another OS or else are much more technically
advanced than I am, of course.

Search Assistant is/was UI for the IE5/IE6 search bar.
(E.g. the Explorer bar which opens when you either click on the Search button
or press Ctrl-e in those versions of IE.)
It definitely applies to your OS and your version of IE.

The URL I gave you (and have left copied below) is the one for the smaller window
which pops up separately when you use the Search Assistant's Customize... button.
(Sorry I forgot about that -ize suffix before and called it a link instead of a button.)

Please try the link and tell us any of its options seem familiar. ; )


Robert
---

:
....

....

 

[Jim Byrd]

Hi MOL - I'm not sure (along with others apparently) just what it was that
you lost, but I believe that the GooglePreviewIE toolbar perhaps would do
what you need:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/googlepreview-ie.html


"GooglePreviewIE adds a small toolbar to Internet Explorer that displays
website snapshots as thumbnails along with your regular Google and Yahoo
search results. This allows you to get a (small) preview of the site without
having to visit it first. Once installed, the thumbnails will display
automatically with every search you perform. GooglePreviewIE also includes a
pop-up blocker and a menu for quick access to searches of other online
resources such as Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, YouTube and several others.

Freeware"


I use this and find it quite satisfactory. FWIW, this developer also makes
a version for Firefox. See here: http://ackroyd.de/googlepreview/


Note that I have no connection or affiliation with this developer or these
products.

--
Regards, Jim Byrd,
My Blog, Defending Your Machine,
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/



In Miami Old Lady <[email protected]> typed:
|| Robert:
||
|| I am running IE6, not IE7, so I cannot see the information you
|| requested, or else I don't know to look for it. I run Windows 2000
|| Professional, SP4 and cannot change to another operating system due
|| to employer's constraints.
||
|| Perhaps you are thinking of another OS or else are much more
|| technically advanced than I am, of course.
||
|| Thanks for the suggestions.
||
|| "Robert Aldwinckle" wrote:
||
||| message |||| Robert:
||||
|||| Alas! If Microsoft has eliminated the search preview thumbnails
|||| and I am, indeed, beating a dead horse, I am in a lot of trouble.
|||| I will continue to try to work with the Microsoft engineers and
|||| see if they understand that the functionality was necessary for
|||| those of us with handicaps.
|||
|||
||| I think you need to understand that you are dealing with two very
||| different organizations. The original search functionality was
||| provided by MSN.
||| MSN has changed over the years. IE has had to adapt to those
||| changes.
|||
||| One extreme example of those changes is that originally there was
||| a feature in the Search Options called Just go... which was
||| implemented
||| by MSN by forwarding to a search service called RealNames.
||| That's what allowed people to just enter domain names in their
||| Address bar and actually open a relevant page. Now, provided
||| Search from the Address bar is enabled it just results in a search
||| with the default search provider.
|||
|||
||||
|||| Although I had Live Search installed without any notification from
|||| Microsoft through one of their updates, at the time it did not
|||| make me lose the thumbnails. That came later, on an update I just
|||| installed which was dated 08/14/07.
||||
|||| I believe that eliminating functionality should have been clearly
|||| announced when updates were noted. I read all provided with every
|||| update and install them manually, to avoid getting something I do
|||| not want. If one of the updates mentioned the loss of the search
|||| preview thumbnails, I wouldn't have installed it!
|||
|||
||| I think you're just noticing coincidences. Unless you just
||| recently installed IE7 I doubt that updates had anything to do with
||| your observations.
|||
||| To get a better idea of what functionality you had been using please
||| use the Search Assistant Custom... link and tell us what options
||| you would have chosen:
|||
||| E.g. here's the one for EN-US:
|||
||| http://ie.search.msn.com/en-us/srchasst/srchcust.htm
|||
||| BTW note the domain name in the above URL.
|||
|||
||||
|||| We'll see where this ends up at!!!!! And thanks for the
|||| explanation.
|||
|||
||| Unfortunately, I think you're starting this quest far too late.
||| Thanks to Google and Microsoft's web news archives apparently being
||| culled I doubt if we can even reconstruct an accurate history of
||| the feature you are looking for. What I'm giving you is mostly my
||| recollections or my reports of my analysis and observations about
||| the Search Assistant feature.
||| I don't know of any source which is a definitive summary of it, let
||| alone what currently remains of it.
|||
|||
||| HTH
|||
||| Robert
||| ---

 

[Karen Sheffler]

I am not sure if this will help, but there is an application called cool
iris that works with ie 6 that allows you to hover over a link and will show
what it looks like (bigger than a thumbnail)

Karen

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?JethroUK=A9?=]

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007 02:33:36 +0100, JethroUK© wrote:

Are you speaking of "FavIcons"? (Favorite Icons)

nope - favicons (which i also use) is just a custom web page icon as
distinct from a thumbnail being a miniture web page

 

[N. Miller]

nope - favicons (which i also use) is just a custom web page icon as
distinct from a thumbnail being a miniture web page

Well, I did a little more exploring in MS Internet Explorer 7, and found
that, with multiple tabs, there is a "four-square" icon on a tab just to the
left of the leftmost tab; and clicking on that icon reveals a page with
thumbnails of the contents of the tabs.

--
Norman
~Shine, bright morning light,
~now in the air the spring is coming.
~Sweet, blowing wind,
~singing down the hills and valleys.

 

[Gordon]

Well, I did a little more exploring in MS Internet Explorer 7, and found
that, with multiple tabs, there is a "four-square" icon on a tab just to
the
left of the leftmost tab; and clicking on that icon reveals a page with
thumbnails of the contents of the tabs.

It's called Quicktabs - and I posted about that to this very thread 4 DAYS
ago.....