Ion Knowledge Base

Running multiple versions of Java side-by-side with Ion

Browsium Ion allows for Web Application Continuity: freezing the versions of components required to run your web applications at a ‘known good state’. This often includes running a specific version of Java for one web application that may be different …

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Browsium Ion versioning information

Summary This document details the release dates and version numbers for the Ion product, including update releases. Use this article to determine which version of Ion you have installed on your system.   Release history Ion 2.0 Update 3 was …

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Browsium Ion 2.0 Update 3 Release Notes

The Browsium Ion 2.0 Update 3 release notes provide specific details on what’s new and known issues for this version. Browsium-Ion-2-0-Update-3-ReleaseNotes.pdf

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Write your first rule in Browsium Ion

Summary Browsium has created a demo website to help demonstrate functionality and verify the Ion Client add-on is installed correctly. The demo website is available for customers to use in testing out some basic rules and settings. This article provides …

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What are Profiles?

Profiles are groups of settings and configuration options tied to a particular browser engine. Profiles enable you to set specific registry values or define custom ActiveX settings to ensure a web application runs properly if it requires specific versions or …

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How do I create a Profile?

Profiles are created using the Configuration Manager. Simply create a Project then choose “Add Profile” from the action pane on the right side of the manager. Choose the IE engine you need and then name your new Profile. That’s all it takes. …

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What is the Adaptive Quirks Profile and how does it compare to IE’s Quirks Mode?

Quirks Mode can solve issues for many websites.  Unfortunately, there are two issues with Internet Explorer which prevent Quirks mode from being effective:  The inability to properly determine the correct time to invoke Quirks mode (based on the where and …

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How do I manage Ion rules?

All Ion rules are managed through the Configuration Manager. Making a rule is very simple – just select your options from the dropdown lists, enter the URL, domain name or pattern to be matched and select which Profile should be …

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How do I deploy Ion?

Ion can be deployed using any infrastructure technology you are using today. We don’t make any assumptions about or put requirements on your infrastructure in order to deploy Ion. The user mode package is created as an MSI, so you …

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Can multiple teams independently manage their own set of Ion rules and profiles?

Absolutely. The Configuration Manager is installed as part of the admin mode installation, and is simply an interface to edit and configure Ion settings. Administration isn’t done centrally by design – Ion doesn’t have any infrastructure or server components – so …

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Pro Tip: Using “Absolute URI” and “Is” in a Rule? Don’t Forget the Forward Slash!

Using “Absolute URI” and “Is” in your rule is handy when you need an exact match to a very specific page, but don’t need everything else on the site to use an Ion or Catalyst rule. But “Absolute URI”is picky: it …

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What changes does Ion make to the system?

None. Ion was designed to run as a per-user application so it can actually be run without being installed on the system if needed. No system configurations are changed or values modified, and Ion can be fully uninstalled at any …

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What are the system requirements for Ion?

Browsium Ion has been designed to be lightweight. In general, if your system can run Windows, it can run Ion. The specific requirements are: Operating System Windows XP SP2 or later (32-bit only) Windows Vista (32- and 64-bit systems are …

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Does Ion change my default browser?

No. Whether IE is your default browser in your organization or not, Ion does not affect your default browser choice. By design, Ion is meant to be used to provide a compatibility experience and should be used when needed rather than …

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Does Ion replace any operating system components?

Ion is designed using software isolation, so we are able to provide the rendering experience as needed without replacing system components. When a user enters a URL, Ion evaluates the request against the rules list and determines if the resource requires Ion …

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Does Ion require system admin rights?

No, Ion has been designed as a per-user application. We worked hard to make sure Ion is very lightweight, easily deployed and requires no special configurations to run. Ion will work the same if the user has local admin rights or on …

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Can I run Ion in a virtual desktop/terminal services/Citrix environment?

Yes, Ion was designed to work perfectly in virtual desktop/terminal services/Citrix environments where resource constraints play an important factor in determining user load levels. The Ion  rendering process consumes a minimal amount of memory when active (exact memory usage varies, but …

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Ion Configuration Manager will crash if the Ion Client add-on is not installed

Summary The Ion Configuration Manager requires the Browsium Ion Client add-on also be installed in order to function. Attempting to run the Configuration Manager without the client already installed will result in a crash in the manager. Details The Browsium …

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Ion Update 3: Ion may stop unexpectedly when a user logs in to their computer

Summary Browsium Ion Update 3 (version 2.0.3) stops unexpectedly when a user logs in to their computer. Issue When an administrative or standard user logs in to a computer that has Ion 2.0.3 installed, but is not the user who …

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Ion Update 3: Standard Users may see an Ion license error when logging in or starting the controller manually

Summary With Ion Update 3, when a standard user logs in and Ion loads, or when a standard user starts the Browsium Ion controller manually, they may see an Ion License error dialog. Issue The license file used does not …

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Managing the Microsoft Java VM (MSJVM) with Ion

Overview Although the Microsoft Java VM (known as the MSJVM) has not been available since 1998, some organizations still use the MSJVM to run some of their internal applications. The MSJVM is another Java VM, just like Oracle/Sun’s Java VM. …

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Finding Helpful Content – Documentation and Tutorials

You will find many helpful support articles on this site, including KB articles, tutorials, and product documentation (Admin Guide, Release Notes, etc.). But a better place to find and read this content is on our new Browsium Support & Documentation Site. …

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Information requested when submitting a bug report

Summary The following information is requested when submitting bug reports to Browsium for Ion and UniBrows issues. Please follow these steps to make sure that the Browsium team has all relevant information with which to debug and troubleshoot any problems …

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Ion: Java warning message in Configuration Manager when Java is not installed

Summary On clean Windows machines with no Java installed, Ion administrators may see a Java warning dialog when running the Ion Configuration Launcher. Details On some clean Windows machines (including XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Servers), administrators who run the …

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Understanding Browsium Ion’s Limited Profile

Summary Ion profiles are the core of how Ion allows you to run legacy web applications inside newer browsers like IE8 and IE9. This article details how and when it is appropriate to use the “Limited” Profile, available only with …

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Overriding an ActiveX killbit using Ion’s Custom Registry Manager

Summary As the Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer security landscape changes, Microsoft occasionally “kills” an old ActiveX control when that control is found to have serious security issues. These events typically occur when Microsoft releases a new browser and can …

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Setting a custom registry value with Ion

Summary Ion gives you the ability to specify custom registry settings for a given profile. These settings apply only to that specific profile, and do not affect the default browser, other Ion profiles nor the base Windows operating system. This …

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Using the Feature Control Manager in Ion

Summary Starting with IE6 for Windows XP SP2 and continuing through IE7, IE8 and IE9, Microsoft included ways to toggle new security features and behaviors on and off in their newer browsers. These toggles, called FEATURE CONTROL KEYS (or FCKs), …

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Using the Content Override Manager feature in Ion

Summary Ion introduces a new feature called “Content Override” which allows IT pros to replace an entire page that would normally be loaded by a website with a new version of the page in the different location. Through this feature …

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How do I determine the version of Ion installed on my system?

Summary Use the following steps to determine what version of Ion components you have installed on your system.   Resolution There are two Ion components that you should check separately: the Client Package and the Administration Tools. Please review the …

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Running custom JavaScript with Ion

Summary This article is designed to introduce Ion administrators to the concept of using Ion profiles to customize, override or insert JavaScript in web pages using the custom scripts feature in Ion profiles. Administrators are assumed to be familiar with …

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Understanding the Hang Prevention Timeout feature in Ion

Summary This article details the function of and use for the Hang Prevention Timeout feature in Ion.   Feature introduction The Hang Prevention Timeout feature is useful in situations where users are navigating to sites using Ion that appear to …

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Knowing when to enable/disable DEP/NX with Ion

Summary This article details how and when to disable or enable support for DEP/NX within Ion profiles.   What is DEP/NX? At a high level, DEP and NX are hardware-level security improvements created out of the security crisis of the early 2000’s. Essentially, DEP …

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How can I see which ActiveX controls a site is attemtping to load?

Summary If you are using Ion to access a web application that uses ActiveX controls, you will want to know if the correct ActiveX controls are being loaded or not. This article will step you through some steps to demonstrate …

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Using Fiddler to track web site traffic for Ion

Summary It is important to understand the traffic sent to and from a web application in order to create complete sets of rules to render it with Ion. To make it easier to diagnosis traffic, there are free tools that …

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Resetting local Group Policy settings (for evaluating Ion)

Summary During the evaluation of Ion, clients may have local Group Policies set to the machine to verify GP support with Ion. Those settings may continue to stick even after the Policies being tested have been disabled.   Problem If …

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Configure Ion to load settings from a local file

Summary In most cases, Browsium’s Ion settings (rules and profiles) will be pushed to users via Group Policy / Active Directory. This is the recommended method for distributing Ion settings. However for some clients where Group Policy is not available, an …

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Using Ion to invoke a legacy version of Flash

Summary This article assumes that users have access to the Ion Configuration Manager, access to a copy of the Flash 9 ActiveX control (flash9f.ocx), and are familiar with creating and configuring rules and profiles with Ion. This article will guide …

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Using regular expressions in Ion rules

Summary The Ion Configuration Manager tries to make it simple to create rules to match your web applications. In general, the basic rule condition (e.g. “Begins With” or “Includes”) selections will suffice for matching your application and applying the correct …

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How can I uninstall previous versions of Ion?

Summary You may need to uninstall Ion from a system before installing a new version, because the Administration Tools no longer needed on a given system or because you no longer need to access an application that requires legacy IE …

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Resetting local Group Policy keys (for evaluating Ion)

Summary During the evaluation of Ion, clients may have local Group Policies set to the machine to verify Group Policy support with Ion. Those settings may continue to stick even after the Policies being tested have been disabled.   Problem …

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