Just when you think that perhaps Microsoft has learned a thing or two about interface design (after all they just released Vista, which is suppose to be their greatest interface achievement of all time), you install Internet Explorer 7 and are greeted with the cruel joke that is the IE7 Toolbars. Why did they put the menu bar in the middle? This is contrary to every other application on Windows. Supposedly it is due to Vista’s interface.

There is a registry key that you can add to force the menu bar to load on top, like it is in IE6. You will need to add the following key:

After you add the key, close IE7 and open it up and it should now look similar to this:

Reference Microsoft Developer Tony Schreiner’s Weblog.

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When it comes to Internet Explorer, there is one feature that is not particularly useful for web developers. Both IE 6 and the newer version 7, have a feature that overrides error messages sent from the web server to the browser. This feature takes effect any time an error message is less than 512 bytes long. To turn off this feature, you need to bring up Internet Options and go to the Advanced tab, under the Browsing section you will find: Show Friendly HTTP Error Messages. You need to clear this setting and now IE will display all error messages sent from the server.

Note that most web servers send 404 error messages that are less that 512 bytes, by default.

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