Supporting many legacy web applications and systems can be a pain if you are suddenly forced to install a complete new browser platform.

As of October 2006, Microsoft is pushing the installation of Internet Explorer version 7 as a critical update. This means that it will push through most people’s Windows Update settings.

Although the user still has to accept the installation of IE7 per se, it’s still annoying to have the setup popup on your screen when you are not really interested in it.

How to prevent the update package from being installed

Its a simple matter of creating and setting a single registry key:

HLM/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Internet Explorer/Setup/7.0 then add the DWORD value [DoNotAllowIE70] and set it to "1" (true).

Thanks to Amit Agarwal‘s great article on Blocking IE7.