Mitigating Internet Explorer 6 Compatibility in Windows 7 with vWorkspace

In this article Patrick Rouse explains how Quest and Microsoft have partnered to offer an IE6 Compatibility Bundle (known as Quest vWorkspace IE6 Compatibility Edition) for customers migrating to Windows 7 who need to support IE6 applications.

As you may well know, Windows 7 can’t natively run Internet Explorer 6 (or 7).  Many customers are left without a viable solution on how to migrate to Windows 7, when they have mission critical applications that REQUIRE IE6.  With this inexpensive, easy to implement solution, customers can continue their Windows 7 migrations with the comfort in knowing that they can continue to use their IE6 Applications in a manner that is fully SUPPORTED and ENDORSED by MICROSOFT and QUEST!

Initially Application Virtualization seems like the answer, but virtualizing Internet Explorer is neither compliant with the Microsoft EULA, nor is it supported (just like running any binaries from one Microsoft OS is not supported if the binaries are executed on a different OS).  So while it may be technically possible to virtualize IE6 with Microsoft App-V, VMware ThinApp, Symantec SVS, Citrix Application Virtualization, none of these are supported and all violate the Microsoft EULA.

The solution detailed in this presentation is SUPPORTED, COMPLIANT and ENDORSED by Microsoft and Quest.  In a nutshell, Quest vWorkspace seamlessly presents IE6 (from 2003 R2 Terminal Server) onto the Windows 7 Desktop (physical or virtual).  Because it's powered by vWorkspace, the end user experience is just what they would expect from an application that's running locally.  This means that fancy graphics and videos are seamlessly presented in their Windows 7 desktop, printing from IE6 works flawlessly and each time they use IE6 all of their settings are persisted, like favorites, cookies, homepage, window and menu layout...

This solution for IE6 Delivery to Win7 includes all of the bells and whistles of vWorkspace (when publishing IE6) Enterprise Edition, such as:

• Server and Application Load Balancing
• Seamless Application Presentation
• Desktop & Start Menu Integration
• WAN Acceleration & RDP Compression (via Quest EOP)
• Multimedia Acceleration (Flash)
• Bi-directional audio
• Universal Printing (Client, Network and Remote Relay)
• User Profile Management
• User Environment Configuration
• Single Management Console with Granular Delegated Administration

vWorkspace is the same product that has helped customers like Kingston University to deploy a large scale VDI implementation on Hyper-V and integrates with App-V and SCVMM.

Source: http://communities.quest.com/community/vworkspace/blog/2011/06/28/mitigating-internet-explorer-6-compatibility-in-windows-7-with-vworkspace

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