How the Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluator Works

Article
04/01/2009

The Internet Explorer Compatibility Evaluator (IECE) enables you to determine whether a Web site or Web application will have compatibility issues when used with a new version of Internet Explorer, such as Internet Explorer 7. IECE works by enabling compatibility logging in Internet Explorer, parsing logged issues, and creating a log file for uploading to the ACT Log Processing Service.

Note

IECE can run on both the x86 and x64 architectures.

This topic includes:

IECE terminology
IECE high-level process
IECE compatibility issues
Internet Explorer and IECE logging

IECE Terminology

Term	Definition
ACT Log Processing Service	The service that processes the log files uploaded from your client computers, adding the information to your ACT database.
Application Compatibility Manager (ACM)	The user interface (UI) that enables you to view reports based on the IECE information generated from the ACT database. This is also where you create the data collection packages used to deploy IECE.
Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT)	A suite of tools that enables software developers, independent software vendors (ISVs), and enterprise IT professionals to determine whether their applications are compatible with a new version of the Windows operating system, newly-released Windows security updates, and Internet Explorer 7.
Application Compatibility Toolkit Data Collector (ACT-DC)	A self-extracting executable (.exe) file containing your configuration manifest and installation file for the data collector and compatibility evaluators. After deployment, ACT-DC installs the compatibility evaluators, maintains their scheduling and data collection, and uploads the issue data to your ACT database.
compatibility evaluator	A command-line program launched by the ACT-DC and configured by the user through the data collection package (DCP) settings. An evaluator might run immediately and exit, or continue to monitor system activity through the duration configured by the user.
compatibility evaluator definition package	The collection of files and data created by a partner defining a compatibility evaluator.
compatibility evaluator installation package	The installation package used by the ACT-DC to install a compatibility evaluator module. The provider of the compatibility evaluator produces the compatibility evaluator installation package that is included in the compatibility evaluator definition package.
compatibility evaluator module	A compatibility evaluator component that isexposed to the ACT-DC. A compatibility evaluator module generates data and can have dependencies on other compatibility evaluators.
component	A part of the ACT that specifies the compatibility evaluator resources and settings.
configuration manifest	A file containing all of the user configurable settings, such as which compatibility evaluators will run, when and how long the compatibility evaluators will run, where to log data, and so on.
data collection package (DCP)	A self-extracting executable (.exe) file created in the ACM for deployment to each of your client computers. Each data collection package can include one or more compatibility evaluators, depending on what you are trying to evaluate.
data collector	A set of compatibility evaluator modules that produce or gather data and then store the data locally in a raw or nearly raw form. All compatibility evaluators act as data collectors, and are installed and deployed by ACT-DC.
post-processor	A compatibility evaluator module that takes volumes of raw data and produces actionable data in a format that matches the ACT schema, with extensions supplied by the compatibility evaluator provider. More than one post-processor might depend on a single data collector, and a post-processor might depend on data from more than one data collector.

IECE High-Level Process

IECE relies on ACT-DC and Internet Explorer for evaluation, logging, and viewing purposes. The high-level process includes:

Installing ACT-DC, including IECE, and then deploying IECE to your client computers.
Starting IECE to enable Internet Explorer logging.
Requesting your users to launch Internet Explorer 7 and visit your line-of-business (LOB) Web sites and Web applications. Internet Explorer will log any compatibility issues to the Windows NT Event Log.
Using IECE to process the logged Windows NT event.
Using ACT-DC to direct IECE to finish its processes and then stop, and then using ACT-DC to pick up the processed IECE log file for uploading to the ACT Log Processing Service.

IECE Compatibility Issues

The issues logged by IECE and Internet Explorer are typically due to security features added to support a new operating system or Internet Explorer release. You can view your logged issues on the Analyze screen of the Application Compatibility Manager.

Security Features List

The following list includes the security features added for Internet Explorer 7 to the Windows® XP operating system with Service Pack 2 (SP2), the Windows Server® 2003 operating system with Service Pack 1 (SP1) operating system, and the Windows Vista® operating system.

Security Feature Logging Details

Each logged issue contains the following information:

The Web site URL
The Internet Explorer security feature (for example, Zone Elevation)
The date and time that the issue was encountered, with the most recent date taking precedence
The security zone of the Web site at the time that the issue was encountered
Attributes specific to each security feature

Internet Explorer and IECE Logging

IECE and Internet Explorer work together to locate and log all of the issues found at visited Web sites.

IECE and the Registry

Each time you start IECE, the compatibility evaluator enables Internet Explorer logging through the following registry key.

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\Feature_Enable_Compat_Logging [dword *=1]

Note

The *=1 enables logging for all processes, not just Internet Explorer (IExplorer.exe).

IECE Parsing of Logged Issues

Internet Explorer logs any compatibility issues to the Windows NT Event Log. The issue data is stored as XML data and attached to the logged event as binary data. The process for parsing the XML data is:

IECE verifies the issue XML data against the Internet Explorer logging schema. If the XML data does not match the schema, Internet Explorer writes an error to the Windows NT Event Log and continues with the next logged issue.
Upon successful verification, IECE compares the logged issue to a list of previous errors found at that Web site. If IECE locates the issue in the list, it replaces the issue with the new data, containing a new date and time. If IECE determines that the issue is unique, it adds the issue to the list.

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