Bonum Certa Men Certa

Walmart’s Employee Benefits Web Site Requires Microsoft Internet Explorer in 2022



Reprinted with permission from Ryan

OO October 15th, open enrollment for next year’s benefits started for Walmart employees.



It was all going well until we had to set up beneficiaries.



When I got to that part, the entire page looked old, gross, and vaguely Microsoft Internet Explorer-ish.



Sure enough, when I clicked on the buttons in a modern Web browser, nothing happened.



Soon, I was left figuring out how to load a Windows 10 Enterprise Edition 90 day evaluation copy into VirtualBox from an image supplied by Microsoft…..



Yeah, I’m serious.



I was disgusted that it took up most of an afternoon to get the appliance working.



Fedora, for its part, was entirely unhelpful because to set up VirtualBox, you pretty much (1) have to have “Secure” boot turned off so it won’t reject the kernel modules (that’s fine, I already had that crap turned off anyway), (2) make sure that dkms and kernel-devel are installed, even though VirtualBox doesn’t depend on them.



It uses akmods to build kernel modules for VirtualBox to use (kmods), and finally after a while of jiggery pokery, I was able to load the virtual appliance and run Internet Explorer to get at the beneficiaries page.



It was even more horrible than I imagined. Not just because the virtual machine ran like shit, or because Microsoft hasn’t bothered to re-base it on a current version of Windows 10 that has had security patches, but because in the end I had to use Internet Explorer, which I did not ever use as my default browser.



Which I took pride in removing from Windows 98, lock, stock, and barrel, with RoM II SE when I was a teenager.



I wasn’t especially displeased with Windows in the 1990s, until they welded this unstable bloated piece of junk into the guts of Windows 98.



They never admitted it, of course, but it wasn’t as integrated as they said it was, and without its bloated web-ified Active Desktop shit (RoM replaced the shell with the one from Windows 95 OSR 2.1), it was actually very stable.



One time I even hit the 37 day bug and had Windows crash, but for some reason, someone at Microsoft noticed that and patched it. Given that I was never able to keep Windows 98 running for more than a day or two with Internet Explorer in it, I wonder how anyone even found that bug.



That would be an interesting question to have answered on Raymond Chen’s blog, but due to politics, I doubt anyone from Microsoft will ever admit, they probably removed Internet Explorer from their computers too and then hit the bug and decided it annoyed them.



True to form, the Windows Blog has a post raving about their own IE Mode in Microsoft Edge. “Dual Engine Advantage”…..LOL



They have some corporate customers, apparently Walmart wasn’t the only big company to write an incredibly big pile of shit using Internet Explorer and then leave it there for all time, saying how much use they’re getting out of IE Mode for Microsoft Edge.



Of course, there is a Microsoft Edge for “Linux”, but it wouldn’t do you any good to install it trying to get at an IE Mode.



See, IE Mode isn’t some emulation of IE.



Internet Explorer 11 is actually still there, in Windows 11, baked into the operating system. Receiving only the bare minimum amount of patching to fix security holes and to put new TLS certificates into it so you still can point it at a Web server.



Windows 11 has an embarrassing oversight that Bleeping Computer revealed a while back, where you can still start Internet Explorer 11 in browser mode, and it’s fully functional, but you have to go through the Legacy Control Panel to get to it.



In many respects, Windows 11 is about the furthest thing from a modern computer operating system there is.



For Star Trek: Picard fans, it’s more like the Hellish Alternate Timeline that Q created, where humanity became fascists and kept raping the environment and glossed over the destruction of the biosphere with a giant shield over the planet.



“They didn’t fix anything….”, Q explains….”Here, they just tend to the corpse.”



Windows has basically ran its course. The minute Microsoft drops IE Mode and the other “But this mess we have needs that to run.” garbage is the minute that the last person to leave Windows turns out the lights.



Oh they say they’ll support it until 2029 as a well tended corpse, but will they really?



Could be more, could be less. Why trust them? Why pay them forever and beg them to keep this mess on the road?



If you’re not fixing your applications now, you’ll be paying Microsoft a lot of money for legacy support (because that’s what Windows is now, a failing platform with legacy support options) and fixing the application later anyway, probably when you make the move to GNU/Linux.



When one thing fails, Microsoft doesn’t take their lumps and learn their lesson and design something that works. But they do design something else. And along with that something else, they leave behind a pile of skulls from their other abortive attempts.



Consider how many terminals and shells Windows has now, including some from the “Linux subsystem”.



But the fact that it has three Web browsers and two of them don’t even allow you to open them anymore (but are still there) is more amusing than that.



Windows is utter crap. It’s just a complete garbage pit, literally. They just give up on things, leave them there forever, and go make another mess.



They themselves have a nicer euphemism. “Technical debt.”



The fact that they have their own term for the mess that they caused and still proceed to make the mess worse is entertaining.



I have no idea what I’ll do if I need to use that page again in the future. Maybe try to find some way to load the Windows 11 evaluation edition in the VM, but that won’t be for at least a year. Hopefully, someone at Walmart fixes it.



Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
 
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
Links for the day
Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
Links for the day
When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
Links for the day
Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
we can expect Android to widen its lead
The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
X (not the site) is Free software
X Server Still Works for Many People
A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
Links for the day
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore