First off, I just want to say a few things. I use Firefox with a myriad of extensions on top of it. I like it a lot and I am very annoyed when “someone” makes me use “some other” browser. I have used IETab in the past as a compromise but fortunately a couple of months ago the MSDN has become bearable in Firefox so I uninstalled it.
A while ago Scott Guthrie Scott Guthrie posted about some ASP.NET hotfixes. I ran into some of the issues described myself (especially the recompile issue) so I though I should install them.
First off, these fixes are available only through Microsoft Connect. So they want better statistics on who’s using what patch. No big deal, I’ll just enter my “Passport”. I login, I go to the download page, I press “Download”. A bold text on a red (actually pinkish) background appears that says “File transfer is starting. For Windows users, a separate File Transfer Manager will start.”. WTF. After a second or so a Download File dialog appears in Firefox with the name “downloaddetails.aspx”.. hmmm.. not cool… Still, I save the aspx but to no luck. The file was just 1k in size containing no obvious real URL.
So I start IE. I go to the download page and click download and a friggin’ ActiveX Controls wants to install on my machine. Yes.. the above mentioned download manager. Nice. I install the damn thing and get my update.
To summarize the experience:
- no Firefox support
- no Firefox error handling (downloaddetails.aspx !?)
- must install ActiveX in order to download a 2.15 MB file.
- the managed download worked with the astounding speed of about 30KB/s
So.. maybe I’ll reinstall IETab.
Tags: ms
