Although it’s a great product, many have justification to be worried about the soon (November 1st) automated deployment of IE7. IE7 will be made available via Automatic Updates and the Microsoft updates catalogue (SMS and WSUS). Many are asking how to block this automatic installation.
- If you use automatic updates enabled on your PC then you can block the IE7 installation using a blocker toolkit. Unlike the XP SP2 blocker, there is no timeout or timebomb. You will still be able to manually install IE7 if you wish. There is an ADM file so you can use group policy to control the blocker (reinforce the block setting) and also to remove the block setting if you want.
- Anyone with automatic updatews enabled and who does not have local administrative rights will not download nor install the product, regardless of whether the blocker toolkit is installed or not.
- If you maintain control over automatic update approval then you can prevent the installation by choosing to deselect it.
- Anyone using SMS has complete granualr control should IE7 appear in the catalogue for the Inventory Tool for Microsoft Updates.
- The WSUS team have revealed that IE7 will download as an Update Rollup. You should choose to maintain manual control over update rollup authorisation (Options – Automatic Approval Options) if you are using WSUS (the current version being V2.0) and do not want to automatically deploy IE7. You can choose to decline the update when it appears.