How to enable Internet Explorer 9 to use top-level domains to perform Pinned Site domain checks on SiteMode APIs and on Task definitions

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Symptoms

Windows Internet Explorer 9 Pinned Sites use Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDN) to perform domain checks on SiteMode APIs. This is a problem for sites whose notifications are generated from pages on domains that differ from the site URL that was originally pinned. This original site URL is known as the StartURL. For example, consider the following scenario 1.

Scenario 1

The page URL of a pinned site is http://www.contoso.com/page1, and the Pinned Site notifications are generated from http://machine1.contoso.com/page2. The FQDN that is associated with the URL is www.contoso.com, and the FQDN that is associated with the notification page is machine1.contoso.com. In this scenario, because the FQDNs do not match, the SiteMode APIs on the page2 site are not permitted to send notifications to the taskbar.

Also, Pinned Site tasks are only read from the pinned URL�s page that is the StartURL. This causes a problem for sites that rely on redirection of the pinned URL�s page to assign server resources to users. For example, consider the following scenario 2.

Scenario 2

You have a server farm, and the entry point into the site is http://www.contoso.com/. The entry point URL is a redirection page to a server farm from http://machine1.contoso.com/ to http://machineN.contoso.com. The StartURL for the pinned site is http://www.contoso.com, but the tasks are generated from http://machineN.contoso.com. In this scenario, because the pinned URL does not contain the meta-tag definitions for the SiteMode tasks, no tasks are displayed.

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Resolution

The cumulative security update for Internet Explorer introduces�a new meta-tag that lets SiteMode APIs work correctly for pages on the same top-level domain.��

Using the example that was mentioned in Scenario 1, the top-level domain for http://www.contoso.com/page1 and for http://machine1.contoso.com/page2 is contoso.com. The name of the meta-tag is "msapplication-allowDomainApiCalls." This is the syntax:

The meta-tag must be included on the page that is used to start the Pin Site installation. This meta-tag can only be defined during installation. It cannot be changed afterward.

To avoid the Pinned Site URL task problem, we introduced a new meta-tag that allows for Tasks that are defined in other pages on the same top-level domain to be read and applied to the Taskbar Tasks. Using the example in Scenario 2, the top-level domain for http://www.contoso.com and for http://machine1.contoso.com is contoso.com. The name of the meta-tag is �msapplication-allowDomainMetaTag.� This is the syntax:

The meta-tag must be included on the page that is used to start the Pin Site installation. This meta-tag can only be defined during installation. It cannot be changed afterward. Be aware that this meta-tag allows for tasks to be updated or removed by any page of the domain.

Security update information

To resolve this problem, install the most recent cumulative security update for Windows Internet Explorer. To do this, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://update.microsoft.com

For more technical information about the most recent cumulative security update for Windows Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft website:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/current.aspx

Note This update was first included in security update 2530548 (MS11-050). For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

2530548 MS11-050 Cumulative security update for Internet Explorer: June 14, 2011

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