Well, I have spent several months wondering why I couldn’t ever load any Java applets in IE 7. Not that it’s a big deal since I use FireFox more than Internet Explorer, for reasons obvious to many Web surfers. However, it kept nagging at me and so I looked into it today and found out the following:
Java loves to keep every update installed and separate on your system. I had nearly 1GB of java “updates” and JRE and JDK updates installed, each of them over 100MB, many over 200MB. What is the point of this Sun? Why force all of them to remain, if the current is the best one to use? Should it not prompt me whether or not I want to keep the old version, in case I need it for compatibility or something instead of automatically filling my hard drive with software that is not even used?
Windows Live Messenger installs the Windows Live Sign-in Helper and Windows Live Sign-in Control. Both causing issues. On my home system, under my wife’s profile, she opens IE7, only to have it load a Microsoft Live page, then redirect her to the MSN home page that she uses. It honestly adds several seconds, if not more, to the browser load time. The purpose? I am not sure, because my profile does not do this.



