IE 8 Release: Successful, with a Few Bugs

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When Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) on Thursday, there were no immediate outcries over missed show-stopper bugs or jammed download servers.

Indeed, the first day and a half of IE8’s public availability seems to have gone exceptionally smoothly. Still, at least several hundred users have sought help on Microsoft’s community forums for what are mostly buggy annoyances with the new browser.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) released the final version of IE8 on the second day of Microsoft’s MIX09 conference in Las Vegas this week — publishing a Web site where anyone can download it.

Unlike many product releases, Microsoft’s community forums where many users seek help from other users, were not littered with complaints typed in screaming capital letters or full of angry rhetoric, as they so often are.

In fact, all in all, considering the volume of IE8 units being downloaded, the rollout has been relatively uneventful so far.

Additionally, instead of common forum posts with double-digit numbers of users checking in, few of the postings on Microsoft’s community forums for IE8 have more than two or three posters.

Disaster? No. Rough spots? Yes

That doesn’t mean that users haven’t hit rough patches, however.

“I created my company’s website using a MS Publisher 2007 template. After
upgrading IE 7 to IE 8 my menu tabs and many important images no longer show
up. I don’t have any way of fixing this,” said one user whose screen name is Phil Wheeler.

Another user had an equally aggravating problem. The user, who used the screen name MS, complained that IE8 wouldn’t print. “Clicking on [the] printer icon does nothing. Nothing is sent to [the] print queue,” MS’s post said.

Other users complained of problems with screen fonts reset to very small sizes, and a few users complained that on their systems the “Find on this page” feature no longer finds anything.

Microsoft is still soliciting reports from users who encounter bugs in IE8. However, to start with, the company will place a priority on fixing bugs that had already been fixed in earlier test releases of the browser only to re-emerge in the final release code, according to a statement on Microsoft’s Connect site.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail asking how the early stages of IE8’s general availability are going by press time.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com.