Application Compatibility in Vista: IE7 Issues - User Agent String

  • Article

Internet Explorer version number is 7.0. The Version is included in the User Agent String as a part of HTTP request header. Some of the applications check for the User Agent string for the version of browser. Because the version for IE7 is changed, the web sites that check the User Agent String for the IE version will get higher version number.

This may result in one of the following:

  1. Web sites might render incorrectly
  2. Web sites might refuse to load
  3. Web Sites might reduce functionality

 

To fix this problem, rewrite the web application so that it properly handles IE7's User Agent String and IE7's behavior. More information can be found at following URLs.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/aboutuseragent.asp

https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/browserdetection.asp

 

A Quick fix can be User Agent String Utility, which is a free download. It manually alters the registry keys to emulate IE6. This is not a proper solution but can be very handy in test environment. The bad part about this utility is that it is not configurable. It will emulate IE6 for each and every website. You can download the utility at: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9517db9c-3c0d-47fe-bd04-fad82a9aac9f&DisplayLang=en .