Before people escape to their spring break destinations, be aware that Internet Explorer version 6 (IE6) and version 7 (IE7) will be upgraded to version 8 (IE8) at K-State on April 1 for security and application compatibility reasons. Since the original announcement, no one has raised any issues against the upgrade — on the contrary, many have applauded the move. Thus, we plan to proceed with the upgrade as originally planned.
This update will be applied to university computers that use the central WSUS server. System administrators who manage their own WSUS servers are encouraged to apply the update as well. Computers that do not have Microsoft patches managed by any WSUS server should manually update to IE8 if they have not already. If you are unsure what category you fit into, contact your IT support person or the IT Help Desk.
The original announcement in InfoTech Tuesday did not mention IE7, but subsequent discussions by SIRT determined that it should be updated as well. As the original article indicated, all major K-State applications work with IE8, which has been out for a full year and has many advantages. The user interface is different, though, so for some it will take some getting used to.
Watch InfoTech Tuesday for more information as the upgrade date approaches.
