This will be about something which bothers me a lot in Microsoft software – why in many of Microsoft programs we are relaying on IE Internet connection settings and state.
Sometimes I'm working off-line – IE is switched to work off-line mode. When I get back on-line and I don't want to use IE – just chat on Live Messenger I can't log on. Why? Because IE is off-line. So I have to lunch IE, make it on-line and then log on with Live Messenger. Why? Everything was perfect with my Internet connectivity.
Other thing – when IE is being set to dial-up Internet connection when my notebook will loose its Internet connectivity (even if I'm on LAN network and just changing address etc) and IE is not active most of programs will display dial-up dialog. All of them at once – so with Outlook, Live Messenger and Office Communicator I will get three dialogs, which are useless if my LAN connectivity will be back in few secs. Why … this was setting for IE not for these programs.
I know … dependencies … but I would be glad to see situation in which IE will be just one of programs in system. Not influencing system (and other apps) configuration.
I know I really dislike that about our software, people use numerous vendors to do a bunch of things, they should rely on the network stack not on IE. C