14 DAY TRIAL // The latest release of the Compatibility View list update for Internet Explorer 8 went live earlier this week and is now available for download. In an effort to maintain compatibility between IE8 and website developers for IE6 and IE7, Microsoft introduced the Compatibility View feature in the browser.
The Redmond-based company also maintains a list of websites that fail to play nice with the gold version of Internet Explorer 8. For this specific content, IE8 doesn't use the latest version of its rendering engine, tailored to modern web standards, but rather behaves like older releases of the browser.
“An update for the Windows Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View list that is dated June 23, 2009, is available. This Compatibility View list update makes Web sites that are designed for older browsers look better in Internet Explorer 8. When you install Internet Explorer 8, you can decide whether the sites that you browse should be displayed in Compatibility View. After you install this update, you may have to restart Internet Explorer,” Microsoft informed.
The software giant is offering the refresh for IE8 running on top of Windows 7 Release Candidate, Windows Vista RTM/SP1/SP2 and Windows XP including SP3. In order to take advantage of this update, IE8 users need to access the browser's Compatibility View Settings, and must select the “Include updated website lists from Microsoft” option. Internet Explorer 8 was released to web in mid-March 2009. At this point in time, the company is collecting feedback from end users for the next iteration of IE.
“Sites that appear in the Compatibility View list are sites for which other users have clicked the Compatibility View button. This list is updated automatically and helps users have a better experience with Web sites that are not yet updated for Internet Explorer 8,” the software giant stated.
- Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows XP (KB971930) - Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows XP x64 Edition (KB971930) - Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows 7 Release Candidate for x64-based Systems (KB971930) - Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows 7 Release Candidate (KB971930)- Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows Vista (KB971930) - Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows Vista x64 Edition (KB971930)
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).