Robert’s Ramblings

It is ironic that I wrote yesterday how Apple’s iPhone software upgrade added functionality that I had wanted for a long time. I have experienced the opposite with a Microsoft upgrade. I upgraded two computers that I work on regularly to Internet Explorer 8 and have found out that the new version of the browser does not support opening a web address as a folder. This is handy for people who have a Windows server configured to share files through WebDAV—a technology that Microsoft developed and has promoted for sharing files over the Internet. Even Linux servers now have code to support this and my iPhone allows transfers to and from it using the Air Sharing application which works by mimicking a WebDAV server. I used to connect to the iPhone by opening the address shown in the Air Sharing application screen using Internet Explorer 7. It was as simple as going to the File menu, selecting Open, entering the address and selecting the check box that said, “Open as Web Folder.”

To get this functionality now, in Vista you have to go to Start, Computer, select Map Network Drive and then click on the link that says: “Connect to a Web site that you can use to store your documents and pictures.” You are then taken to a wizard that walks you through a series of steps to connect to the WebDAV folder. This is not what I consider progress. Microsoft, how about a patch that fixes this downgrade to a real upgrade?