Microsoft is gearing up for yet another chapter in the availability of Internet Explorer 8. In this regard, the Redmond company will release a new wave of IE8 RTW upgrades via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in just a couple of months. Affected are business customers that use WSUS in order to manage the updates delivered in their IT environments. Microsoft indicated that WSUS administrators would be able to see IE8 RTW updates becoming available starting with August 25, 2009.

“Internet Explorer 8 will be made available as an “Update rollup” and will be applicable to all supported languages,” explained Eric Hebenstreit, IE lead program manager. “If your organization uses WSUS and has it configured to auto-approve Update rollup packages, upon acceptance of the Internet Explorer 8 End User License Agreement (EULA) by the WSUS administrator, Internet Explorer 8 will install automatically on computers running Internet Explorer 6 or 7 on supported operating systems.”

At the same time, the Release to Web build of Internet Explorer 8 will be accompanied onto WSUS by cumulative security updates for the browser as well as IE8 Compatibility View List updates. The Redmond company indicated that the refreshes would be served through WSUS as soon as they would become available. IE8 was released to web in mid-March 2009.

"To give you control over how and when Internet Explorer 8 is deployed in your environment, perform the following steps: Before August 25, 2009: Turn off auto-approve for “Update rollup” packages in WSUS, and approve the updates manually. Note: Even if Auto-Approve for “Update rollup” is on, you will still be required to approve the Internet Explorer 8 EULA before Internet Explorer 8 is deployed to downstream clients,” stated Hebenstreit. “After August 25, 2009: Synchronize your WSUS server.
Decline the Internet Explorer 8 update packages. If you typically auto-approve update rollup packages, you can re-enable automatic approval for “Update rollups”."

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).