XMLHttpRequest won't work in IE 7/8 but works in other browsers

Question

I\'ve developed a web application that works well on chrome and firefox. However when it came to testing time and it doesn\'t work properly in IE. It just doesn\'t seem to a

Answer 1

From Wikipedia:

if (typeof XMLHttpRequest == "undefined")
  XMLHttpRequest = function () {
    try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0"); }
      catch (e) {}
    try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0"); }
      catch (e) {}
    try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); }
      catch (e) {}
    //Microsoft.XMLHTTP points to Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0 and is redundant
    throw new Error("This browser does not support XMLHttpRequest.");
  };

Answer 2

As mentioned here, Internet Explorer supports the onload event of the XMLHttpRequest object only since version 9.

So, for IE 8 and below, you can do it in the old fashioned way:

xhr.onreadystatechange = function()
{
    //ready?
    if (xhr.readyState != 4)
        return false;

    //get status:
    var status = xhr.status;

    //maybe not successful?
    if (status != 200) {
        alert("AJAX: server status " + status);
        return false;
    }

    //Got result. All is good.
    loading.innerHTML = '<a href="../classes/php/print.php" />Print Report</a>' + 
        '<br/><br/><a href="../index.php" />HomePage</a><br/>' + 
        '<a href="../classes/php/actionedClass.php" />Refresh</a><br/>' + 
        '<a href="../classes/php/logout.php" />Logout</a><br/>';
    target.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;

    return true;
}