IE7 update available for Vista while Windows XP users wait

Submitted by Bryan on January 31, 2007 - 5:15pm
Steve Reynolds, Microsoft Internet Explorer Program Manager, announced on the Microsoft Internet Explorer Blog that an update for Internet Explorer 7 is available. The IE7 update "addresses an issue experienced by some users where CPU usage is high when they are navigating a page that contains multiple frames or when multiple frames are navigated simultaneously". If you have experienced any such performance issue, Microsoft is encouraging you to download and install the update.

While a software update is not unusual, I couldn't help but notice the following words from his post (with my own emphasis is in bold).

This update is now available on Windows Update for Windows Vista users and will be made available in February for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 users. All users can download it now here along with related KB article 928089.

You can't help but wonder how much Microsoft marketing is or isn't involved in this decision. What better reason for a user to update from Windows XP to Windows Vista than the fact that security and performance updates for Windows XP will be arriving behind Microsoft's new favorite son. Sigh...
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What would Mozilla do?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 31, 2007 - 6:34pm.
What would Mozilla do?

Isn't it amazing, when Firefox is updated the updates are available for at least three operating systems, Windows, Mac, and Linux usually at the same time. Microsoft can't even provide IE7 at the same time for their two Windows platforms, Vista and XP.

Here I thought Microsoft was improving their development process. They still need to learn a thing or two from open source.

Available, but not yet automatically

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on February 1, 2007 - 8:07pm.

The update is available for the other platforms (follow the download link in the article to verify this), but MS chose to publish it on Windows Update only for Vista. I cannot imagine a sound technical reason for the discrepancy.

Naturally, I'm inclined to consider that this might be the beginning of a subtle campaign of encouraging upgrades via intentional unnecessary inconveniences, eventually building up to more aggressive tactics (e.g. no DirectX 10 on WinXP, no IE7 on Win2000). Some will say that doesn't make sense - after all, the Server 2003 patch is also not published on Windows Update and there is no upgrade path for Win2003 yet. However, with Win2003 being a server, IE usability is less of a concern (you should probably only be using IE to access Microsoft and other trusted technical sites from a server), and server admins are adept enough to decide whether the patch is needed before its published on Windows Update and go get it directly. This is most often not the case for the majority of WinXP users, especially home users.