Two new free editions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 are live for download from Microsoft. The offerings are just the latest versions from a series delivered since late 2006, following the release of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2. At the end of November 2006, Microsoft was making available the first bundle of Internet Explorer 7 and XP SP2 as a virtual hard disk designed to integrate with Virtual PC 2004 and Virtual PC 2007. With that move, Microsoft delivered on an earlier promise to permit web developers to test their creations in both Internet Explorer 6 and the then recently launched Internet Explorer 7.

The Redmond company has just updated its offerings of Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC images. In fact, Microsoft was hard at work making the new IE Application Compatibility VPC images available for download at the time of this article. "It's 8:30am PST and the VPC's are in the process of being moved from the staging server to the live servers and I expect them to be up in the next hour or so. I'll [offer] an update as soon as they're available," revealed Pete LePage, Product Manager, Internet Explorer, Developer Division.

As it has become almost a tradition, Microsoft is offering two virtual hard disk containing a pre-activated copy of Windows XP SP2, complete with the latest updates, and IE6 and IE7. Additionally, the company has also thrown the IE7 Readiness Toolkit. Both virtual images are timebombed and set for expiration on December 7, 2007. Initially, the releases were planned for August 10. The date was subsequently missed, and LePage promised to deliver the new downloads on August 15, as the previous virtual hard disk images were set up to expire on August 17. Still, it is only today that Microsoft offered the updated IE Application Compatibility VPC images.

Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images 2.0 are available for download here.