Prevent, Block and Disable Automatic Updates Install of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) for Controlled Upgrade
Internet Explorer 7 or IE7 will be released, distributed and installed automatically as a High Priority Update by Automatic Updates, and Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites. Internet Explorer 7 will be available for users of genuine Windows XP SP2, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, and Windows Server 2003 SP1. As one of the delivery channel of IE7 is Automatic Updates, if you have configured your to automatically update your Windows, then IE7 setup files will be automatically download, consuming your bandwidth. If you’re a system administrator for many computers prefer for manual deployment with just one download, or want to control or delay the upgrade process to IE7 or simply dislike IE7, then you should take action in order to prevent and block the Automatic Updates’ downloading and installation of Internet Explorer 7.
If your organization or company uses an update server such as WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) or SMS (Systems Management Server), to prevent and block the deployment and installation of IE7 to workstations, simply declines to release the update will prevent unwanted changes.
If all your users login as an user account without local administrator privileges, then Automatic Updates will not be offered to these users too. Besides, non-administrative users also cannot manually download and install IE7.
Before installation of IE7, Microsoft checks the DoNotAllowIE70 DWORD registry key entry in the following registry branch:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0
If the key is present, IE7 will be offered as optional downloads only, and not as a high priority update which will required your action. To prevent and block the download and install of IE7, simply modify the value of DoNotAllowIE70 to 1. If the key is not present, create a new DWORD key DoNotAllowIE70 with value as 1. However, the user can still manually download and install IE7.
Microsoft offers Internet Explorer 7 Blocker Toolkit which is used to to automate the process to disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 above, and contains 2 components of an executable blocker script and a Group Policy Administrative Template (.ADM file). The IE70Blocker.cmd script which creates or removes the registry key on the local or remote computer in the workgroup (if manipulation of registry entries is not blocked on computers within the workgroup). The /B switch will add the registry key to block the automatic update, while the /U switch reverts this status. For detailed instructions on how to use the script and Group Policy template, visit Blocker Toolkit download page.
If you don’t like to mess with and modify the registry yourself, and found that the tools provided by Microsoft is hard to use, there are also third-party utilities from IntelliAdmin that let you enable or disable automatic install of IE7 with just a click of button with nice graphical user interface.
IntelliAdmin IE 7 Remote Blocking Tool. The first of two utilites means for changing the registry setting on remote machines or computers. Download it here.
IntelliAdmin IE 7 Blocking Tool. The second tool from IntelliAdmin to update the registry setting on automatic installation of IE7 on local computer system only. Download it here.
As the last line of defence, even if you forget to block the Automatic Updates of IE7 or accidentally download IE7, all users can still decline the installation of IE7 when is notified by the Internet Explorer 7 Welcome screen. To decline the upgrade, just press “Don’t Install”.
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Entries (RSS)
July 10th, 2008 08:34
Damn, imagine elaines scenario, if your in sys admin, getting to work and having 100+ users not beng able to use their email, because of an automatic update. Sounds a bit like bit of fun i had with winxp pro sp2 and auto update 890830 malicious software remover. This copied the login details but removed the user profile, wont go into this here, if it decided that any nasties were in the user profile..you didnt even have a chance to confirm almighty change to your system it just did it. Come to work Monday and walk into this…sort of thing ..tell you what i have been hearing…go linux!..\i’m not a linux user..yet but (expletive) updates like these that are offical ms updates..the update developers need to be put against a wall and you know the rest.. Linux is looking more attractive if not rather foriegn and microsoft are trying to keep market share..the updates they release are the cause of half the issues with there software..what does that tell you. No direction and to many fingers in the pie.
December 15th, 2006 13:45
IE7 was downloaded to my computer without any warning. Now IE7 blocks every meaningful dialog with all sites that I need. Adding these sites to ‘trusted sites’ does not help.Nothing else helps. I am switching to Netscape.
November 1st, 2006 22:25
[...] Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) is the latest next generation graphical web browser from Microsoft for Microsoft Windows series of operating system. IE7 features enhanced security framework, protection against phishing, deceptive or malicious software, full user control of ActiveX, various bug fixes, enhancements to support the web standards, improvements in HTML 4.01/CSS 2, tabbed browsing, tabs preview, tabs management, and web RSS feeds reader. Windows users can download Internet Explorer 7 directly from Microsoft Download Center (learn how to install IE7 bypassing Windows Genuine Advantage validation), and Microsoft will roll out IE7 via Automatic Updates as High Priority Updates (learn how to block and prevent automatic download and installation of IE7). LAPTOP Magazine reviews Internet Explorer 7 and also compares IE with FireFox, and comes to conclusion with rating of 4 out 5 that “in the grand battle between Firefox and IE, we think that IE has a bit of an edge in this release, although the Firefox 2 betas we have seen will catch it up a bit. Many of the things we like about Firefox have been implemented in IE7 and have been polished to be more streamlined and useful. For those of us who spend a lot of time researching and working on the Web, IE7 represents the best and most aggressive IE upgrade we’ve seen in a while.” [...]