IE 6 on Linux

IT has rolled out Outlook Exchange calendar replacing Meeting Maker in our office. However, most of the Engineers in our office use non Windows workstation. Outlook exchange over web interface (Outlook Web Access light) from non-Windows platform was painful. Here are the shortcomings that I have encountered:

1. No pop-up reminders about meeting
   
2. No weekly view
3. User interface is not intuitive (Microsoft! Are you listening?)

Please note most, if not all, of these problems are not applicable if you use IE on Windows machine.

If you are put up with (or forced to) a similar situation, here is what you could do to save your life. Please note that for brevity I am keeping the instructions simple. It is very easy to follow the instructions that accompany these softwares and install them.

1. Install Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator). [Wine 0.9.9 was already installed on our Linux machines!]
   
2. Download and install IE for Linux. The software can be downloaded here.
3. You are not done yet. You need to edit the registry to set the User agent parameters. [Courtesy: PC Tools]
   
• Execute wine regedit
• Create the following key if it does not exist
• [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\5.0\User Agent]
• Create the following string values and set the value as shown below
  
• Compatible - "compatible"
  
• Platform - "Windows NT 5.0" or "Windows NT 5.2"
  
• Version - "MSIE 6.0"
• Change the "Default" value to "Mozilla/4.0"
• Exit regedit
4. Start IE, access and enjoy the feature rich Outlook Exchange Calendar using your browser.

In case if you have issues, you may have to try the following.

1. From IEs 4 Linux forum
   
• Download the missing registry settings from here
• Export WINEPREFIX= (e.g., set WINEPREFIX to /home//.ies4linux/ie6)
• wine regedit.exe
  
• Import the downloaded registry settings (Registry\Import registry file)
• Restart IE.
2. Try creating following registry entries
• [Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Internet Settings\\User Agent\\Post Platform]
• “Windows NT 5.1″=”This String Doesn’t Matter I think”
• [Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Internet Settings\\User Agent\\Pre Platform]
• “Windows NT 5.1″=”This String Doesn’t Matter I think"

PS: Though I haven't tried, I believe it should work on any Unix/MAC platform that supports Wine. Use at your own risk :-)

Ciao,
Sudhagar