Downloading a browser in E, without a browser, in 3 steps
On October 22nd, the main version of Windows 7 to be sold, in the various EU-participating countries, will be Windows 7 “E”. What is this you ask? Windows 7 “E” is merely Windows 7 sans Internet Explorer, the EU’s OS of choice. Consumers will quickly discover, however, it’s a huge pain in the ass to download a browser of their choice… without a browser.
Mom and Dad will likely get a pre-built machine, by either a popular manufacturer or their kids, so this isn’t a problem for them. Us, on the other hand, are incredibly lazy. We won’t want to bend down and grab one of a million USB fobs. Or put yet another executable on our NAS. Or heaven forbid, waste a CD. We need something clever. This is one such clever.
Step 1 – Launch (and configure) Windows Media Player
Throughout the OS, you’ll find references to Windows Media Player. Click one of them. You’ll be welcomed by a wizard that takes a good five minutes to go through, if you don’t choose the Recommended option.
Step 2 – Search for your browser, using the Windows Media Guide
If it isn’t already on your screen, open the Windows Media Guide. You can do this by clicking the very large Media Guide button in the lower-left corner of Windows Media Player. In the upper-right corner of the Guide, type your browser of choice into the Search box. Purely for example purposes, cough, I typed “Firefox”.
Step 3 – Click an ad, download your browser
Upon completion of your search, you’ll be presented with some advertising. We’ll use this to our advantage to hop outside the cage we’re in. Pick an ad, click it. If it doesn’t take you to the manufacturers site in less than a few clicks, go back and pick a different ad. Eventually you’ll end up at the desired location with the binaries you need trickling down to your desktop.
For those that wish to download Internet Explorer, you can simply type the keyword IE8 or Opera. I’m serious.
Figure 1, 2 -- Windows Media Player being used to search for and download Mozilla Firefox
Very clever but did you do this with IE8 disabled in features
Or install Visual Studio and make your own IE-based browser from which to download Firefox from! :)
More seriously, it’s probably better to get a cheat USB drive and install Firefox Portable, Opera USB, or my own Google Chrome Portable on it. Then downloading a browser for Windows 7 E is only one of the many useful things you can do with it.
cheap*
Sorry for the triple posting. Al you need to pay attention. E has no IE8 in features, IE8 is permanently stripped out unless you download the installer for it.
The ActiveX control for the IE rendering and browsing engine is still included because many third-party apps have it integrated, like Steam, and removing it would totally break those apps (plus it would encourage devs to use Gecko or Webkit in their apps instead).
Yes Dan I am aware of that. I asked because I didnt know he was running Windows 7E
Gah I really hate thinking of something new to post and not being able to edit comments. Merge them all if it bugs you Rafael. :)
Not too sure you should be encouraging ad clicking when it’s far too easy for a malicious ad to take you somewhere to pwn your computer (since you’re using IE’s browsing control). Possibly even more risky with the control since you’re not using the IE7/8 process integrity/sandbox feature, AFAIK.
Clever indeed.
What if you have Windows 7 N?
Call the EU and ask them to send you a browser on a CD.
I remember couple years back that Windows Help could be used for internet browsing.
Cant we use the ftp://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.5/win32/en-US/ to get the set up file instead?
That FTP uses an anonymous login. I tried it and it worked like a charm. Unless i am missing something ??
This is a pretty amusing trick if it works.
I was planning on firing up a command prompt and using ftp to connect to http://ftp.mozilla.org :-)
Your website added the http:// to my last post. I did not write it!
i was planning to wait if the EU accepts this ploy or not. The fat lady didn’t sing yet and they still have the last word.
for the while they are being seriously mangled to behave: http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2245682/microsoft-faces-eu-antitrust
Nice workaround… but whatabout the people who buy N edition in Europe ;-)
FTP will do the trick I’m sure. And if not then it will let me get a wget port, which I can then use as an HTTP client to fetch a browser.
This does not work in the UK version of media guide it seems, typing firefox or ie8 just brings up videos to do with it, with no sponsored links on the side.
So this will only work if you have the country of the media guide set to the US.
But… Media Player is not one of the softwares that are supposed NOT to be preinstalled on Windows?
Can’t get chrome that way! Microsoft’s search doesn’t turn up any ads
Nice trick! IE8 has not been fully removed.
You missed one important step.
Adverts only appear on the US media guide. Luckily, you can just click on the language selector to the left of the search box and select “United States” to get adverts. Those of us who are set to the UK locale only get to see bing media results.
@Graham… ahhh, I was wondering that very thing
Something I haven’t tried, but you could see if running mshta from the command line would also work:
mshta.exe http://www.bing.com
It’d be clever if each company put their browser installer on an easy to remember UNC path. e.g. If you could just type \\ie.ie\ie\ie.exe into the start menu to get IE. :)
(Inspired by the way you can access the SysInternals tools via UNC these days.)
Wasn’t there also supposed to be a media-free edition of Windows in the EU, too? Windows XP N? What if you don’t have WMP?
Yes, that’s one of the days when you’re really proud to be an European. /blush
Yes this seems to work which should also work with the N editions I would think:
mshta.exe http://www.bing.com
What about using the CTR+L in the media guide? When i do this – having IE8 “uninstalled” – i get to the well known window where i can enter any URL I want.
opera.com
chrome.google.com
mozilla.com (acting a bit weird when firefox is already installed and set as the default browser)
Just launching “mmc” from Run and then using the old “Jump to URL” trick seems to work fine in Windows 7.
Run -> “mshta.exe http://www.mozilla.com”
Right-click on “Download Firefox Now” and “Save as”.
Done! You got the installer!
1. CMD /c mshta ftp://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.5.1/win32/en-US/
2. Save target as on Firefox binary.
The mshta.exe trick doesn’t work as you expect it, on an E machine, due to missing components. It’s not usable.
This cracks me up.
EU: “Oh yes, you must remove all of IE from Windows.”
MS: “Yeah, can’t DO that.”
EU: “Have to. Or else.”
MS: “No, you don’t understand – it’s not technically POSSIBLE.”
EU: “But you MUST. Just do it. Take it out, of course you can take it out. You’re Micro$haft, you’re EEEEEEEVIL.”
MS: {deletes shortcut from desktop} “Ok, it’s gone!”
It’s SO still there. They SIMPLY CANNOT remove it, since it renders EVERYTHING. Explorer windows, WMP… EVERYTHING. The entire OS is rendered with XML now, using Internet Explorer DLL’s.
hh http://getfirefox.com
You’ll have Back, Stop, Refresh and Print buttons. :)
Have you just gone mad Gurm ?
Explorer has nothing to see with Internet Explorer since vista. And in Seven it can be totally removed. It’s just that some applications need the IE core engine to render pages (like it’s been said in a previous comment) : WMP, Steam… So they left an ActiveX that applications can use. But IE is REALLY not there !
(And again, nothing to see with explorer…)
Try actually uninstalling the browser instead of just disabling it (go for the actual .dll:s if necessary, manually!) and see how this fails to work.
This is waay too much trouble. Just open a friggin Windows Explorer window and type in an ftp url (e.g. ftp://ftp.mozilla.org) or (ftp://ftp.opera.com) and you’re there…
@nyp: Brilliant! That’s the best solution thus far.
@Scott: Navigating the FTP isn’t exactly easy for newcomers, hence why I didn’t mention it.
I tried this on wmp 9 in ‘winodwsmedia’ home page there is a actually LINK to IE8 which you can download the browser from
Quentin Calvez,
i’m sure no one at MS knows where I ends and E begins. I’m also sure it’s impossible to separate the 2 now. That they didn’t lie when they said they couldn’t get it out. Not for lack of (well at least not totally) of will but in great part because the code is now in a state where it’s completely beyond any human competence to visualize it’s state of integration.
Already with the source code for the shuttle it was admitted that the code was beyond human comprehension and i remember it to be a couple of million lines at the time.
Most blocks of code are generated by codegenerators which in turn are quality controlled by computerized processes. They are then assembled into the codebase via an automated proces that collates the code.
Which is then computer tested.
No way in hell anyone is going to comprehend that, but of course admitting to the world that MS has no idea how it’s code works is not what i would advise them to do.
So better to brave the onslaught of the EU, try to make the best of it, hide IE’s components and hope for the best.
Or I believe once launched IE will be an optional selection in Windows Update…
Wouldn’t that be easier?
is already being taken care of: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/07/16/changes-to-ie8-s-first-run.aspx
It’s a real shame Microsoft doesn’t have a public FTP so we can just get the Internet Explorer via FTP :(
Looks like that hh trick is a keeper. Cheers for the heads up nyp.
Better yet, search for ‘google’.
Will Apple be shipping a version of OSX without Safari in Europe? I doubt it!
So… erm…. Can’t you just type “Firefox.com” into the “Explorer” (<- Explorer.exe not iexplore.exe) address bar and hit enter?
Yea E edition isn’t going have Media Player anyway, due to a previous EU ruling.
See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/help/installing-e
@Barryd According to the page you referenced.. N will be missing Media Player but E will include it.
This is totally ridiculous! I have to use IE8 at work for Reporting Services and now I have to manually install it…. It just doesn’t make sense. EU sucks!
You run Windows Update, which’ll install Internet Explorer as an ‘critical update’ automatically.
Surely?
Pathetic situation really. Microsoft should just be made to install Firefox by default. Clear.
@Ryan and your neighbor should be the one to sleep with your girlfriend / wife period.
I thought the case was about choice and you are forcing MS to use ff lol.
Try getting an E edition of Mac Osx. EU = epic fail.
Did any of you stop and think, why the hell are we going through all of this crap?
1. People who don’t care about what browser they use will end up picking IE anyway because it’s made by the same people who made the OS.
2. Is your grandmother really going to know to use FTP or click on a bunch of ads to get to a browser? Or better yet, she won’t even be able to get to these instructions to know how to click on a bunch of ads to get there!
3. The browsers wars are the stupidest thing to ever transpire on the internet. Let’s all fight over tooth and nail over products that lose millions of dollars a year for these companies. THEY ARE FREE. THEY DO NOT MAKE MONEY FOR THESE COMPANIES.
This is also possible from the search box available in the F1 help of any portion of windows operating systems as well as many Microsoft help sections such as Visual Studio and the MSDN Library.
FYI – It has been announced by Microsoft have proposed a ‘ballot system’, allowing the user to choose and install a browser when they first install Windows. More information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8168235.stm
That seems complicated. Why not just use Powershell:
Import-Module bitstransfer ; Start-BitsTransfer -source “http://hyperion.zih.tu-dresden.de/moz/firefox/releases/3.0.11/win32/de/Firefox%20Setup%203.0.11.exe” -destination “C:\Users\Public\Downloads\”
Okay, more to type, I’ll give you that ;-)
Freakin’ awsome! Thank you!