IE6 and IE7 standalone text input field bug
But I was so attached to IE6!
IE7 standalone text input and IE6 standalone text input bug
While the separate install executable versions of Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 provided by tredosoft are great when used for testing CSS or most JavaScript functions, they seem to have a major bug.
Hundreds of people find that problems arise when they use forms with input fields for text, to the point where they cannot focus their browser into input fields, or even use a form at all.
And since the type of person who installs IE6 Standalone or IE7 Standalone are people like web designers, web developers, programmers, or application developers, having forms not work is kind of a big deal.
Might as well just do it on paper.
The clock is ticking
I had a problem with a form that I was using (which was ported from an earlier, less “smart” developer’s work and had a bug in it that I later found).
Unfortunately, after searching and searching for solutions to make text input work on IE7 Standalone, I found nothing! There was talk about the same problem, but nobody had found a solution or fix for the annoying bug.
I couldn’t just give up though, as I had a high profile client who needed a sign-up form for an internet-based contest and there was a bug with it, which just so happened to only occur in Internet Explorer 7… which just so happened to be IE7 standalone and not the installed Windows version on the test computer.
While I was able to reproduce it on other people’s machines that had IE7 as their main and only version of Internet Explorer, I myself could not get it to work on my development computer, and therefore was struggling to get it to fixed.
Knowing that I either had to reinstall IE7 Standalone with hope of fixing the bug, downgrade my IE8 to IE7, or test with another computer, I was kind of stuck.
Kinda like this but with less peanut butter or fluff
Hope on the horizon
Then I found Internet Explorer Collection! If there was ever a time that I truly loved Internet Explorer, it was when I found this delightful package of all versions of Internet Explorer from IE1.5 – IE8 (with multiple minor versions for some of the major releases too!).
As a matter of fact, IE Collection contains the following versions of IE:
- Internet Explorer 1.0 (4.40.308)
- Internet Explorer 1.5 (0.1.0.10)
- Internet Explorer 2.01 (2.01.046)
- Internet Explorer 3.0 (3.0.1152)
- Internet Explorer 3.01 (3.01.2723)
- Internet Explorer 3.03 (3.03.2925)
- Internet Explorer 4.01 (4.72.3110.0)
- Internet Explorer 5.01 (5.00.3314.2100)
- Internet Explorer 5.5 (5.51.4807.2300)
- Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2800.1106)
- Internet Explorer 6.0 (6.00.2900.2180)
- Internet Explorer 7.0 (7.00.5730.13)
- Internet Explorer 8.0 (8.00.6001.18702)
Once I installed Internet Explorer Collection, I could use input text fields once again! Strange, input fields weren’t as exciting to have until I lost them!
So, in conclusion, when the input text field of a form does not work in IE7 standalone or IE6 standalone, make sure to uninstall the Standalone apps, and download Internet Explorer Collection instead – (I only installed IE6 and IE7 when I used it).
Good Luck and keep coding!