Applets are disabled by yesterday's critical update to Internet Explorer

[Mickey Segal]

Microsoft released a critical update to Internet Explorer yesterday that
will result in users seeing a message about needing to click the mouse or
keyboard to activate a Java applet, typically "Click to activate and use
this control". Here are some details from a Washington Post story about the
problem and below is how to change the code invoking your applets to prevent
this problem.

As described by the Washington Post (though they don't mention that Java
applets are affected as well):
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/04/the_skinny_on_microsoft_patch.html
"... the IE patch isn't all security updates: It also includes a
non-security fix that could make surfing the Web a tad less smooth for IE
users. Microsoft first released this particular fix in February as voluntary
update (that is, if you use Windows Update or Automatic Updates you wouldn't
have seen this patch before now without some digging) to addresses a patent
spat that Microsoft had with Eolas Technologies over the way IE handles
ActiveX controls. Rather than pay to license the process, Microsoft opted to
require Web sites that currently use ActiveX to integrate interactive
features such as Macromedia Flash, Apple's QuickTime Player, RealNetworks's
RealPlayer and Adobe's Reader to redesign their sites to accommodate the
fix. Sites that use ActiveX to serve content to IE users but put off making
the changes will force those users to generate an extra mouse click to
activate those features on the site. "

Microsoft described how to work around this problem by moving the
applet-specifying code into a separate JavaScript file:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d.../author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp
A working example of how to do this for a simple "Hello world" applet is
described at www.segal.org/java/HelloPatent/.

 

[Adam]

Also see

http://geekswithblogs.net/mwatson/archive/2006/03/22/73022.aspx?Pending=true

http://www.hoeben.net/node/135

http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?p=425137#post425137

 

[Paul Hamaker]

Are MS lying about this ? Does it only apply to the object tag (read
that somewhere), because I had the update and notice nothing peculiar
visiting my site, where I use only applet tags. Also looked at one of
Roedy's applets (Biorythm), knowing he uses applet tags, and had no
problem there either. So, did I waste my time figuring out/choosing the
best solution ?
What are your experiences ?

 

[Paul Hamaker]

Turns out I was too hasty judging, cause not until this morning the
update concerned was installed, sorry. At first glance, it seems a
minor inconvenience, since the applets are shown and seem to be working
okay after clicking them. One more reason to recommend using a
different browser, though.

 

[Mickey Segal]

Turns out I was too hasty judging, cause not until this morning the
update concerned was installed, sorry. At first glance, it seems a
minor inconvenience, since the applets are shown and seem to be working
okay after clicking them. One more reason to recommend using a
different browser, though.

Users will figure out what to do, particularly when they see the "Click to
activate and use this control" ToolTip, but it is just another hassle. Many
sites on the internet are not updated with a workaround; I don't plan on
going back and updating the various applets at www.segal.org/java/,
particularly since many are aimed at Macintosh programmers.

I brought the EOLAS issue up here so programmers would be aware of the
problem and could fix it if they want, as we have done for our company site.