Once you've done that, double-click IE7BlockerToolkit.EXE. The program will ask you for a location to extract the files to, and then quit. We're not talking about a slick user-interface here!

Navigate to the temp folder you just created. In it, you'll find four files. The file IE70BlockerHelp.htm is an interesting read, but it's very much oriented towards enterprise IT administrators.

Note to DominoPower network engineers: The IE70BlockerHelp.htm is a worthwhile read. There's system policy information as well as techniques to remote deploy this stuff.

The file you want is IE70Blocker.cmd. And now it gets to be more fun. Because you don't want to just double-click this program. Instead, you need to run it from the command line.

To do this, select Run from your Start menu. In the Run dialog, type in "cmd", as shown in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Let's open a command window. Click picture for a larger image.

You'll see the black and white command window. For many of you, this will be new. For the old-timers among us, this nearly identical to the old DOS A> prompt we haven't had to deal with for years.

Now, at the prompt, type "cd \temp" (without the quotes), as you can see in Figure B. This will move you to the C:\temp directory, which is where the new files are located. Don't forget to hit return at the end of each command.

FIGURE B

Navigate to the C:\temp directory. Click picture for a larger image.

You can see the files in question by typing DIR (remember DIR?), as shown in Figure C.

FIGURE C

It's old-school week here! Click picture for a larger image.

Now comes the key step. Type in "IE70Blocker.cmd /B" and hit return. You can see the result in Figure D.

FIGURE D

You'll see the note saying the IE7 deployment has been blocked. Fun! Click picture for a larger image.

If you later want to unblock deployment, simply type "IE70Blocker.cmd /U" in this same folder.

A happy little registry hack
All that happens when you go through this rigamarole is that a small registry entry is placed in your Windows registry, as you can see in Figure E.

FIGURE E

All that happens is a registry entry is installed. Click picture for a larger image.

The screenshot above is from the Windows Registry Editor. While you could just go into regedit and hack in the key DoNotAllowIE70, we don't recommend it. It's so incredibly easy to screw up your registry and one mistake can completely ruin your Windows install.

Wrap-up
We're honestly really annoyed that Microsoft didn't make this do-not-install flag easier to setup. After all, some mission critical applications won't be properly updated to IE7 and restoring IE6 is likely to be a near impossibility.

In any case, good luck!

Mick Moignard has been working and traveling with Lotus Notes since Release 2.0 in 1991. Mick is a DominoPower Senior Technical Editor and a Principal CLP with Unipart Expert Practices, a Lotus Advanced Partner in the UK. If you want to discuss anything to do with this article, or indeed anything else to do with Notes and Domino, contact Mick at Mick_Moignard@unipart.co.uk. Unipart Expert Practices will also happily discuss any opportunities you may have with any Notes and Domino application development or infrastructure projects you need help with. Unipart Expert Practices can be found at http://www.unipartep.com.