IE8 RC1 on XP SP3 – Handle with Care

Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3 can fail to play nice together under specific scenarios. It is a situation dating back all the way to the Beta stages of IE8, with Microsoft warning users not to deploy Service Pack 3 for Windows XP after the installation of a Beta build of the next iteration of IE, more specifically those that have indeed integrated SP3 into XP after having installed IE8 Beta.

“To see if you need to manually uninstall IE8 Beta first, check these things: is your computer running Windows XP SP3? Click on the Start Menu and then right click on My Computer and then click Properties. On the General Tab under System it’ll say Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 3. Is the Remove option for IE8 Beta grayed out? From the Start menu, open Control Panel and click Add or Remove Programs. Select Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta and you are unable to click on the Remove button,” Jane Maliouta, IE program manager, stated.

In the context in which the IE8 RC1 installer identifies the problematic scenario, it will provide users with the following warning message: “Are you sure you want to continue installing Internet Explorer 8? Setup has detected that you've installed a new service pack for you operating system since installing a previous version of Internet Explorer 8. After completing this installation, you will not be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8.”

Deploying IE8 RC1 on top of XP SP3 that was integrated after IE8 Beta will successfully lock the operating system configuration in place in terms of IE and service pack. This means that users will no longer be able to either download Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1, or Windows XP SP3. After SP 3 and IE8 RC1 become permanent installations, they will only be able to upgrade to later builds of IE, namely to Internet Explorer RTW (release to web), but removal of either IE8 RC, RTW or SP3 will no longer be a possibility.

“To avoid getting into this situation, we strongly encourage you to follow these steps before installing Internet Explorer RC1: uninstall Windows XP SP3, uninstall IE8 Beta, re- install Windows XP SP3, and install IE8 RC1,” Maliouta added.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is available for download here.