Microsoft Has Debuted Internet Explorer 7 Automatic Updating

Although scheduled for debut on November 1, 2006, the release of Internet Explorer 7 via Automatic Updates started on Wednesday 8 November. "On Wednesday, we began a very slow distribution through automatic updates, throttled way down so a very few users would see it," revealed Gary Schare, a director of product management with the IE team.

A very slow distribution translates into Microsoft pushing Internet Explorer 7 through Automatic Updates to one million English users of Windows systems. The one million IE7 updates correspond to 1 percent of English-language IE6 users.

Gary Schare explained that Microsoft is planning to roll out Internet Explorer 7 via Automatic Updates to all the current users of Internet Explorer 6 within three months' time. The Redmond Company is keeping a low rate of updates to keep Microsoft's technical support center from being flooded and to protect administrators who haven't blocked the updating of IE7.

"We'd like to get the software out to as many people as quickly as possible, because we think there's a lot of security value We keep the IE throttle low, so when the security updates come out next Tuesday, they still have priority over IE," said Schare.

"We have now slowly started general AU distribution of IE7 in English, and this will continue over the next few months. For localized versions, we plan to follow this same approach of first releasing to the IE site followed by AU distribution several weeks later. A number of already-released European languages are next to start AU distribution," said Tony Chor, Microsoft Group Program Manager adding that the scheduled release date is November 15.

Internet Explorer 7 AU distribution in Japan will be hold off until the spring of 2007 due to requests from Japanese customers and partners across decentralized IT organizations.