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Microsoft's decision late last year to switch on "silent" upgradesfor Internet Explorer (IE) has moved some Windows users to newerversions, but has had little, if any, impact on the oldesteditions, IE6 and IE7, according to usage statistics. In December 2011, Microsoft announced it would start automatically upgrading IE so that users ran the newest version suitable for their copy ofWindows. Under the plan, Windows XP users still on IE6 or IE7 would beupdated to IE8, while Windows Vista or Windows 7 users running IE7or IE8 would be pushed to IE9. Previously, Microsoft has always asked users for their permissionbefore upgrading IE from one version to the next, even if Windows'automatic updates was enabled. First to get the automatic treatment, Microsoft said, would beAustralia and Brazil, both guinea pigs for the January 2012 debut.The program would then be gradually expanded to other markets. Yesterday, Microsoft declined to disclose what other countries, ifany, had had the auto-upgrade switched on. But in Australia and Brazil, the move shuffled share among someeditions of IE, according to data from StatCounter, an Irish Webanalytics company that publishes country-by-country usage sharenumbers for IE6, IE7, IE8 and IE9. In both countries, IE9 jumped unexpectedly in February, the firstfull month after the auto-upgrade switch was thrown, while IE8 sawan almost-corresponding decline in share. IE9 in Australia climbed 3.3 percentage points that month, a 23%increase, which was significantly greater than any spike of theprevious 12 months. Meanwhile, IE8 slipped 2.8 points, or 15%, inFebruary. The result in Brazil was eerily similar: IE9 jumped by 3.5 points(42% increase over the previous month) and IE8 dropped by 3.1percentage points (for a decline of 16%). There was some evidence that the auto-upgrade did impact IE7'sshare in Australia, since the browser's February decline was only athird that recorded for both January and March. It's impossible to tell if, assuming some copies of IE7 wereupgraded to IE8 or IE9, which operating system - Windows Vista orWindows XP - was affected: Both those editions can run IE7. The theory that IE auto-upgrades primarily applied to Windows 7 andVista users was bolstered by the shares XP owns in each of the twocountries: In Australia, XP accounted for 19.5% of all operatingsystems used in February, while Brazil's XP share that month wasdouble that at 37.7%. If appreciable numbers of XP users had had their copies of IEupgraded, one would have expected to see Brazil's numbers for IE 6and IE 7 show a larger variance from the norm than Australia. Thatjust wasn't the case. The shifts reported by StatCounter hint that IE's automatic upgradeprogram successfully moved some Windows 7 and Vista users from IE8to IE9, but did little to migrate Windows XP users to a more modernbrowser, since IE6 and IE7 shares did not drop more than the usual. Brazil, one of two countries where Microsoft has confirmed using IEauto-upgrade, showed a significant jump in IE9 share in February,but no unusual movement in the aging IE6 or IE7. (Data:StatCounter.) Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsersand general technology breaking news for Computerworld. FollowGregg on Twitter at @gkeizer , on Google+ or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His email address is . See more by Gregg Keizer on Computerworld.com . CAPTION: Read more about browsers in Computerworld's Browsers Topic Center. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China Biological Safety Cabinet , Nitrogen Dry Box Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Corrosive Storage Cabinet.
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