10.19.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

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

Posted in Microsoft, Windows at 5:00 am by Guest Editorial Team

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.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. All of Microsoft's Strategic Areas Have Layoffs This Year

    Microsoft’s supposedly strategic/future areas — gaming (trying to debt-load or offload debt to other companies), so-called ‘security’, “clown computing” (Azure), and “Hey Hi” (chaffbots etc.) — have all had layoffs this year; it’s clear that the company is having a serious existential crisis in spite of Trump’s and Biden’s bailouts (a wave of layoffs every month this year) and is just bluffing/stuffing the media with chaffbots cruft (puff pieces/misinformation) to keep shareholders distracted, asking them for patience and faking demand for the chaffbots (whilst laying off Bing staff, too)



  2. Links 28/03/2023: Pitivi 2023.03 is Out, Yet More Microsoft Layoffs (Now in Israel)

    Links for the day



  3. IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, March 27, 2023



  4. Links 27/03/2023: GnuCash 5.0 and Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on Phones

    Links for the day



  5. Links 27/03/2023: Twitter Source Code Published (But Not Intentionally)

    Links for the day



  6. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, March 26, 2023



  7. Links 26/03/2023: OpenMandriva ROME 23.03, Texinfo 7.0.3, and KBibTeX 0.10.0

    Links for the day



  8. The World Wide Web is a Cesspit of Misinformation. Let's Do Something About It.

    It would be nice to make the Web a safer space for information and accuracy (actual facts) rather than a “Safe Space” for oversensitive companies and powerful people who cannot tolerate criticism; The Web needs to become more like today's Gemini, free of corporate influence and all other forms of covert nuisance



  9. Ryan Farmer: I’m Back After WordPress.com Deleted My Blog Over the Weekend

    Reprinted with permission from Ryan



  10. Civil Liberties Threatened Online and Offline

    A “society of sheeple” (a term used by Richard Stallman last week in his speech) is being “herded” online and offline; the video covers examples both online and offline, the latter being absence of ATMs or lack of properly-functioning ATMs (a growing problem lately, at least where I live)



  11. Techrights Develops Free Software to Separate the Wheat From the Chaff

    In order to separate the wheat from the chaff we’ve been working on simple, modular tools that process news and help curate the Web, basically removing the noise to squeeze out the signal



  12. Links 26/03/2023: MidnightBSD 3.0 and FreeBSD 13.2 RC4

    Links for the day



  13. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, March 25, 2023



  14. Links 26/03/2023: More TikTok Bans

    Links for the day



  15. Links 25/03/2023: Gordon Moore (of Moore's Law) is Dead

    Links for the day



  16. Links 25/03/2023: Decade of Docker, Azure Broken Again

    Links for the day



  17. [Meme] Money Deducted in Payslips, But Nothing in Pensions

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has stolen money from staff (in secret)



  18. IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023

    IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 24, 2023



  19. The Corporate Media is Not Reporting Large-Scale Microsoft Layoffs (Too Busy With Chaffbot Puff Pieces), Leaks Required to Prove That More Layoffs Are Happening

    Just as we noted days ago, there are yet more Microsoft layoffs, but the mainstream media gets bribed to go “gaga” over vapourware and chaffbots (making chaff like “Bill Gates Says” pieces) instead of reporting actual news about Microsoft



  20. Sirius 'Open Source' Pensiongate: Time to Issue a Warrant of Arrest and Extradite the Fake 'Founder' of Sirius

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ is collapsing, but that does not mean that it can dodge accountability for crimes (e.g. money that it silently stole from its staff since at least 12 years ago)



  21. Links 24/03/2023: Microsoft's Fall on the Web and Many New Videos

    Links for the day



  22. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 23, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, March 23, 2023



  23. Links 24/03/2023: Social Control Media Bans Advancing

    Links for the day



  24. Links 24/03/2023: GNU Grep 3.10 and Microsoft Accenture in a Freefall

    Links for the day



  25. Links 23/03/2023: RSS Guard 4.3.3 and OpenBSD Webzine

    Links for the day



  26. Experiencing 15 Years of LibrePlanet Celebration Firsthand as a Volunteer: 2023 - Charting the Course

    Article by Marcia K Wilbur



  27. [Meme] Grabinski the Opportunity

    Reports of European Patents being invalidated (judges do not tolerate fake patents) have become so common that a kangaroo court becomes a matter of urgency for the EPO‘s Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos; will the EU and the EPO’s Administrative Council go along with it, helping to cover up more than a decade of profound corruption?



  28. Union Syndicale Fédérale Cautions the EPO's Administrative Council About Initiating an Illegal Kangaroo Court System for Patents (UPC) While EPO Breaks Laws and Sponsors the Ukraine Invasion

    Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) is once again speaking out in support of the staff union of Europe's second-largest institution, which lacks oversight and governance because of profound corruption and regulatory capture



  29. Investigation Underway: Sirius 'Open Source' Embezzled/Stole Money, Robbed Its Own Staff

    In light of new developments and some progress in an investigation of Sirius ‘Open Source’ (for fraud!) we take stock of where things stand



  30. [Meme] Sirius 'Open Source' Pensions: Schemes or Scams? Giving a Bad Name to Open Source...

    What Sirius ‘Open Source’ did to its staff is rightly treated as a criminal matter; we know who the perpetrators are


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts