Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 for Windows XP SP2

[NICK ADSL UK]

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1

what's new in Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1
We are excited to announce the public availability of the Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1). With this release, we're strongly encouraging web developers, enthusiasts, and IT professionals to finalize their testing and ready their environments for the final availability of Internet Explorer 7. We are confident that websites and applications that are optimized with this build will be compatible with the final version when it is released later this year. For an easy path to compatibility, we encourage technical audiences to download the free Readiness Toolkit.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D13EE10D-2718-47F1-AA86-1E32D526383D&displaylang=en

Internet Explorer 7 RC1 is available for download on Windows XP SP2, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003 systems. This build is available today in English, and all localized versions of Internet Explorer 7 RC1 will be available in September, including Arabic, Finnish, German, and Japanese; French and Spanish versions will also be available for the first time in September.

The Internet Explorer 7 RC1 build includes improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier.

As previously announced, to help our customers become more secure and up to date, Microsoft will also distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates soon after the final version is released for Windows XP later this year.

Be sure to download Internet Explorer 7 RC1 today and keep the feedback coming as we get ready for the final release later this year.

Thanks again to all of you who downloaded the previous beta versions and provided us with valuable feedback to help improve the web experience.

The Internet Explorer team
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx


Please note that Validation is Required
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=94E5BF41-2907-4415-8F72-DA7C2C2ACE09&displaylang=en

A note from me in that do remember to uninstall all previous builds of IE7

[NICK ADSL UK]

IE7 Is Coming This Month...Are you Ready?
The final release of IE7 is fast approaching … and I mean really fast … and will be delivered to customers via Automatic Updates a few weeks after it’s available for download. We want to ensure that you are ready and the information below will help get you there.

Compatibility with sites, extensions and applications has been a very high priority for us as we develop new features, enhance the existing features and move the platform forward to be more secure and standards compliant. We are continually listening to feedback from our customers, partners and leaders in the industry to resolve major compatibility issues to ensure our common customers have a great experience with IE7. As we make key improvements in areas such as layout and security, some changes need to be made by site owners to work smoothly with IE7. We have produced detailed documentation, tools and other resources to assist site, extension and application owners in their testing and development efforts to ensure they are compatible with IE7. We have also proactively worked with hundreds of companies to resolve issues that were reported through our beta testing to ensure those issues were resolved before IE7 is released.

These efforts have been ongoing since last year and have been extremely successful but we can’t ensure 100% compatibility without your help. We need you to test and ensure your sites, extensions, and applications are ready for IE7. We strongly encourage you to do the following ASAP:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/10/06/IE7-Is-Coming-This-Month_2E002E002E00_Are-you-Ready_3F00_.aspx

[NICK ADSL UK]

Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7
Brief Description
The Internet Explorer 7 Blocker Toolkit enables IT Administrators to disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites.

Overview
To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 soon after the final version of the browser is released (planned for fourth quarter 2006). Microsoft is making a non-expiring Blocker Toolkit available for those organizations that would like to block automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 to machines in environments where Automatic Updates is enabled.

Note:
The Blocker Toolkit will prevent machines from receiving Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the “Express” install option on the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites. The Blocker Toolkit will not expire.
The Blocker Toolkit will not prevent users from manually installing Internet Explorer 7 as a Recommended update from the Windows Update or Microsoft Update sites, from the Microsoft Download Center, or from external media.
Organizations do not need to deploy the Blocker Toolkit in environments managed with an update management solution such as Windows Server Update Services or Systems Management Server 2003. Organizations can use those products to fully manage deployment of updates released through Windows Update and Microsoft Update, including Internet Explorer 7, within their environment.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4516A6F7-5D44-482B-9DBD-869B4A90159C&displaylang=en

[Bubba]

-{ Quote: "IE7 Installation and Anti-Malware Applications

A few people have asked why we recommend temporarily disabling anti-virus or anti-spyware applications (which I’ll refer to together as anti-malware) prior to installing IE7, so here’s a little insight to the situation.

Along with copying IE7 files to your system, IE7’s setup writes a large number of registry keys. A common way anti-malware applications protect your computer is by preventing writes to certain registry keys used by IE. Any registry key write that fails during setup will cause setup to fail and rollback changes. We work around the problem in most instances by checking permissions at the beginning of setup, but many anti-malware programs monitor the key rather than change permissions. Therefore, setup thinks it has access when it starts, but then fails when it later attempts to write the key.

The majority of users likely haven’t seen any such problems even with anti-malware enabled because we work with third-party vendors to identify IE7 setup as ‘safe’ based on something like digital signatures or file hashes. While this could lead us to remove the recommendation to disable anti-malware apps, we’ve decided to leave it in setup because a number of factors may still cause some customers to have this problem. Specifically:

With all the anti-malware apps available, we don’t want to assume all of them work just because we haven’t heard of a problem yet.
Even anti-malware apps we’ve tested sometimes require the latest definition updates. If a user doesn’t have the latest definitions, he or she may still hit a problem even though we consider the issue resolved.
Failed installation is an awful user experience so we take every step to reduce the chances of setup failing.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

John Hrvatin
Program Manager" }-http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/10/11/IE7-Installation-and-Anti_2D00_Malware-Applications.aspx