Microsoft Preps IE 7 Beta Refresh

On Monday at the Microsoft MIX 06 Web developer and designer conference
in Las Vegas, Nevada, Microsoft will issue a refreshed version of Internet
Explorer (IE) 7 Beta, which the company is describing as feature
complete. Microsoft will also discuss the next version of IE, which
will likely include features that didn't make it into IE 7, including a
true download manager and more seamless inline Web page searching.

A Microsoft representative told me last week that the company would
issue an update to IE 7 at the MIX 06 conference. IE developers
discussed the release during a recent online chat. "The important thing
about this release is that no further layout changes will be made for
IE 7," Microsoft's Cyra Richardson, IE Team lead program manager,
noted. "[MIX 06] attendees will receive several items at the show that
will allow them to better test IE compatibility. We will be striving to
allow attendees to start testing with the layout-complete version of IE
7."

IE 7 includes a wide range of functional and security improvements and
fixes some of the obscure Web rendering problems that plague previous
IE versions. New features include tabbed browsing, a phishing filter,
integrated Web searching, and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) support.
A Beta 2 version of IE 7 is due later this year, followed by the final
release in late 2006. IE 7 will ship as part of Windows Vista, which is
currently expected in November. But the company will make a
downloadable version available to users of Windows Server 2003 with
SP1, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows XP with Service
Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft says.
 
Looking forward, Microsoft expects to ship subsequent IE versions far
more quickly than before, with nothing like the gap between IE 6 and IE
7. The company will solicit feedback for future IE versions at MIX 06.