diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 1c02eb6d6..53b7aa909 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ Enhancements
  - respect occurences of recurrent events when deleting selected events (#1950)
  - improved confirmation dialog box when deleting events and tasks
  - moved the DN cache to SOGoCache - avoiding sogod restarts after RDN operations
+ - don't use the HTML editor with Internet Explorer 7
 
 Bug fixes
  - don't load 'background' attribute (#2437)
diff --git a/SoObjects/SOGo/SOGoUserDefaults.m b/SoObjects/SOGo/SOGoUserDefaults.m
index 6286d03c4..b862c5523 100644
--- a/SoObjects/SOGo/SOGoUserDefaults.m
+++ b/SoObjects/SOGo/SOGoUserDefaults.m
@@ -25,6 +25,9 @@
 #import <Foundation/NSTimeZone.h>
 
 #import <NGImap4/NSString+Imap4.h>
+#import <NGObjWeb/WOApplication.h>
+#import <NGObjWeb/WOContext+SoObjects.h>
+#import <NGObjWeb/WEClientCapabilities.h>
 
 #import "NSString+Utilities.h"
 #import "SOGoDomainDefaults.h"
@@ -51,6 +54,8 @@ NSString *SOGoWeekStartFirstFullWeek = @"FirstFullWeek";
   SOGoUserProfile *up;
   SOGoUserDefaults *ud;
   SOGoDefaultsSource *parent;
+  WOContext *context;
+  WEClientCapabilities *cc;
   static Class SOGoUserProfileKlass = Nil;
 
   if (!SOGoUserProfileKlass)
@@ -66,6 +71,15 @@ NSString *SOGoWeekStartFirstFullWeek = @"FirstFullWeek";
 
   ud = [self defaultsSourceWithSource: up andParentSource: parent];
 
+  // CKEditor (the HTML editor) is no longer compatible with IE7;
+  // force the user to use the plain text editor with IE7
+  context = [[WOApplication application] context];
+  cc = [[context request] clientCapabilities];
+  if ([cc isInternetExplorer] && [cc majorVersion] < 8)
+    {
+      [ud setObject: @"text" forKey: @"SOGoMailComposeMessageType"];
+    }
+
   return ud;
 }