Return to Common Sense

Not a lot people may know this, but Microsoft made a major change to Windows Explorer in Vista. Have you noticed?

It is no longer integrated with Internet Explorer!

A few may remember that this whole thing was the subject of a series of civil actions filed against Microsoft by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states back in 1998. Despite this, Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer have remained married to each other ever since—until recently that is.

Personally, I have always found the history of these two applications a little confusing. Back in the days of Windows 95, Windows Explorer was the file manager application that came with Windows. Then with the explosion of the Internet, along came Internet Explorer, which was Microsoft's web browser. Apart from the unfortunately similar names, that was OK as far as it went. But things got really messy when Microsoft unleashed the Windows Desktop Update for Windows 95 and NT4. Suddenly Windows Explorer was given an address bar and became integrated with Internet Explorer, so that both applications where, in effect, file and web browsers. Confused? I sure was.

This approach of mashing together file and web browsing into a single application was, unfortunately to my mind, adopted by others, notably Konqueror for the Linux KDE desktop. I was pleasently surprised, therefore, to discover recently that KDE's new file manager, Dolphin, is in fact a dedicated file manager and doesn't compromise itself by trying to be a web browser at the same time. How refreshing, I thought, that KDE is no longer emulating what Microsoft does and has returned to common sense!

It quickly it occured to me to take a closer look at Windows Explorer in Vista also, just to see if any changes had been going on there as well. Sure enough, when I typed a web page URL into it's address bar, it launched Internet Explorer as a separate application rather than rendering the page itself.

Wikipedia, as usual, has some information on the subject, notably that the two applications also become separated on XP when IE7 is installed...

"Also, with the release of Windows Vista & Server 2008 and Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP, Internet Explorer is no longer integrated with Windows Explorer. Unlike older versions, Windows Explorer does not host Internet Explorer controls in its own process, rather it launches a new process when necessary. In Windows Vista and Server 2008 (and in Windows XP as well if IE7 is installed), Windows Explorer no longer displays web pages, and IE7 does not support use as a file manager, although one will separately launch the other as necessary."

Whatever the reason, I applaud the fact that common sense has been restored. Less is certainly more in this case.