Tech Forum

The calendar is not loading properly on internet explorer 8 on desk top pc. It does not come at all on HP touch pad.

There are known compatibility issues with IE8 for many of the tools on LDS.org which have been mentioned in many posts. If you are not still using Windows XP then it would be advisable to upgrade to IE9 (not available for XP) or use a different browser like Chrome or Firefox.

I can’t help but laugh at the fact that you folks have stopped supporting IE8 even though the computers delivered to clerk offices still have Windows XP on them, which cannot use IE9.

porterjl wrote:I can’t help but laugh at the fact that you folks have stopped supporting IE8 even though the computers delivered to clerk offices still have Windows XP on them, which cannot use IE9.

Note that the forums are for community members and run by community members. Note also that other browsers such as Firefox and Chrome can be installed on local administrative computers with the stake president's approval.

The ICS department continues to support development for IE8 when possible. The problem with IE8 is that it is not web standards compliant. There are certain capabilities that are available on web standards compliant browsers that have unexpected results or impossible to accomplish on IE8. Developers must use hacks to make some features work on IE8. Some hacks are publicly distributed. Other hacks require innovation. Sometimes there are no hack solutions. Making websites function correctly on IE8 may require a LOT of effort and time. The Church ICS department has limited development and support resources. Priorities are established by the sponsoring departments. Developers try to continue to make Church websites and tools compatible with IE8 when they can. But to do so requires a disproportionate amount of time and effort as compared to programming for web standards compliant browsers.

new.familysearch.org seems to have no trouble doing it. It just seems worth the effort as long as XP is the platform of choice for all church delivered computers.

My opinion -- it's not so big an issue that it doesn't work on IE8, since there is a simple work around (use a different browser). The bigger issue, is that when it doesn't work, the user has no idea why or how to fix it. For example I just explained to our knowledgeable high council representative why he couldn't display and print calendars. It's just not obvious why.

Also, Microsoft is discontinuing support for XP in just over a year. I don't know what the Church's plans are to deal with that, but hopefully they are seriously considering moving away from XP.

The "platform of choice" is not XP. If your ward or stake has computers still running XP it likely just means your systems haven't been upgraded or replaced recently. Just this past month I received new machines from our FM group for our stake clerks office and they all had Windows 7 installed on them. I've only been the STS for a few months, so these were the first ones I personally replaced, but I've seen several of the other machines in ward clerks offices in our stake that are also already running windows 7 and therefore must have been replaced or upgraded before my calling.

failproof wrote:The "platform of choice" is not XP. If your ward or stake has computers still running XP it likely just means your systems haven't been upgraded or replaced recently.

Computers are replaced on a 5 year cycle (in theory). All of the computers in my stake are less than 5 years old, but many came loaded with WinXP - even when the license sticker said "Vista".

So while "just means your systems haven't been upgraded or replaced recently" is factually correct, any implication that they're overdue for replacement is unfortunately false. WinXP is alive and well on admin computers.



I've said my peace on the decision not to support IE8 in other posts. But as I've observed before, we're not the customer. The priesthood department is. For whatever reason, there seems to be more pressing issues to work on then making this IE8 compatible.

Oh yes, I a absolutely agree and any implications that computers were overdue for an upgrade was not intended, rather I was pointing out that XP is not the platform of choice anymore.

The question, which I don't know the answer to because I am fairly new to the calling, is how recently upgrades to Win7 were started. If it just started last year then we are potentially 4 years away from no one having XP anymore, assuming that all areas of the world are on the same 5 year cycle and all things are common in the church
(And assuming that when it goes out of support the church doesn't do anything to hasten at least the OS upgrade if not the hardware too.)

And by that time, who's to say the websites are even supported on IE9 or 10 anymore in favor of new internet standards, or that any of the major players in the browser industry are even in the game anymore...

The key here is to roll with the tools we have and adapt as needed and able (within church guidelines and standards, of course)

failproof wrote:The question, which I don't know the answer to because I am fairly new to the calling, is how recently upgrades to Win7 were started. If it just started last year then we are potentially 4 years away from no one having XP anymore, assuming that all areas of the world are on the same 5 year cycle and all things are common in the church

A Church employee who was clearly in the know made this post back in October 2010, which makes it quite clear that the transition from WinXP to Win7 was occurring right at that time. As I recall it wasn't a clean cutoff -- some units had gotten Win7 machines a bit earlier, and some still got WinXP a while after that, but that should give you a pretty good idea of when the change occurred.