14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is going to make it easy for current testers of Internet Explorer 9 Beta to make the jump to the Release Candidate development milestone.
Early adopter still running the Beta Build of IE9 will be served automatic updates with the recently launched RC bits.
The promise from the software giant is that this will also be valid for the final release of IE9.
Just as IE9 Beta users will be upgraded to IE9 RC, so will IE9 RC testers be offered automatic updates of IE9 RTW (release to web).
“We will automatically update IE9 beta users to the IE9 RC. After the final release, we will automatically update IE9 RC users to the final build,” revealed Dean Hachamovitch, Corporate Vice President, Internet Explorer.
IE9 RC was launched on February 10, 2011 and is the last development milestone before the software giant finalizes the next generation of Internet Explorer.
Early adopters that already downloaded and deployed IE9 RC on top of the Beta Build know that the experience is seamless and fast.
IT would indeed be very nice if Microsoft would do without the system restart that’s required in order for the IE9 RC deployment to be finalized, but so far I haven’t received any indications that this might happen.
Of course, IE9 RC will continue to be available for download for users that will want to install it manually.
Since the public Beta was launched in mid-September 2010, Internet Explorer 9 was already downloaded over 25 million times.
I’ve asked Microsoft to tell me just how many users were actually running IE9 ahead of the RC launch, and while the company did not provide a specific feature, it appears that the figures released by Net Application at the end of January 2011 offer some indication.
If I were to estimate I’d say that IE9 was already been used by almost 6 million people while still in Beta. That’s quite a few upgrades to IE9 RC if you think about it.
IE9 RC Supports HTML5 Geolocation, Advances Interoperability
IE9 Privacy and Security Evolve with the RC, Tracking Protection Now Available
IE9 RC Performance Superior to IE9 Beta, to All Rival Browsers
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Release Candidate (RC) Build 9.0.8080.16413 is available for download here.