Preventing the automatic update to Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7 is set to be released this month (October 2006) and it will likely be an automatic update for Windows users either November or December of this year. (I’m thinking November.) Now, it’s been a long time in the making, at one point Microsoft said there wouldn’t be another version past 6 of IE, but… it’s finally coming and some people will not want it installed automatically until they’ve had more time to investigate it and test with their critical uses.
Microsoft has a command line tool to block the auto-install…. but…. if you’d rather edit the registry… intelliadmin suggests…
Alternatively you can simply create a registry key that will block the install. It is located under this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0
The key name is: DoNotAllowIE70
Setting this to 1 blocks the install, setting to 0 allows the install.
The link above at intelliadmin also has a utility for remote blocking (for example on a domain) of installs, or a download for you to block the install on a single machine. It’s located here (IE7BlockingTool.exe)