Microsoft says NO to Windows XP users – No Explorer 9!

I’m not very surprised to hear that Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), will not run on Windows XP, not now or when the IE9 code goes RTM. Redmond confirmed this last Tuesday. XP is still the largest OS on the planet in numbers.

So what is Microsoft’s excuse for not IE9 not running on XP?

They say “Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001, and is intended to be run on a modern operating system in order to build on the latest hardware and operating system innovations," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail reply to Computerworld's questions Tuesday morning.

I don’t believe it for one moment! I think Microsoft is trying to force customers into moving to Windows7,  PERIOD!

Technically, IE9 in an attempt to compete with super-fast Chrome, taps your PC's GPU so it boosts text and graphics rendering speeds via Direct2D and DirectWrite APIs. WinXP does not have that API. (yet chrome runs on WinXP)

This stinks. Is it meant to be the stick to get off XP? Users who choose to stay on XP will be stuck with IE8, which, from a security perspective, is becoming the new IE6. Exploits waiting to happen.

You can download the IE9 Platform Preview from Microsoft's IE site. But it only runs on Win7, Vista SP2, W2K8 or W2K8 R2.

Full Article: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

Grrr. Petition anyone?