14 DAY TRIAL // Early adopters running the Beta Build of Internet Explorer 9 will be automatically upgraded to the last development milestone of IE9 ahead of Release-to-Web (RTW). As of Monday, February 14, 2011, Microsoft gave green light to IE9 Beta to IE9 Release Candidate upgrades, with the RC bits being served through the Automatic Update (AU) feature of Windows Update (WU).
“This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over the next few days to cover all Internet Explorer 9 Beta users. This post provides information on how the Automatic Update delivery will work and announces the release of Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker Toolkit,” revealed Vishwac Sena Kannan and Jatinder Mann, IE program managers.
IE9 Beta users that have turned on Automatic Updates will have IE9 RC downloaded automatically to their machine.
AU will subsequently inform them that the Release Candidate of Internet Explorer 9 is ready to be deployed via a bubble presented in the notification area.
At the same time, IE9 RC is being distributed through Windows Update. IE9 Beta users that will check for new refreshes available from Microsoft will come across the Release Candidate of the next iteration of IE provided as an Important update.
The first step of IE9’s installation is a tad different when the browser is provided through WU compared to a manual deployment.
The browser will offer testers running IE9 Beta three options: Install, Ask me later and Don’t install.
“To install Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate, click Install. If you choose Ask me later, WU will re-offer Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate to you during the next update scan.
“If you choose Don’t Install, WU will not offer Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate via AU to you again, and Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate will appear as an optional item on Windows Update.
“Users who decline the update can download Internet Explorer 9 Release Candidate from http://www.beautyoftheweb.com. We strongly encourage all IE9 Beta users to upgrade to the IE9 RC,” Mann and Kannan said.
Similarly, IE9 RC will be automatically upgraded to IE9 RTW when the browser is finalized, soon.
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Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Candidate (RC) Build 9.0.8080.16413 is available for download here.