New Wave of Free Windows XP SP2 Downloads

Microsoft has a long history of providing free downloads of its flagship products, and the company is now hard at work on the next wave of free Windows XP SP2 offerings. Following the availability of Internet Explorer 7 in October 2006, Microsoft decided to lend a helping hand to web developers that needed to test their creations on Internet Explorer 6. And while deploying both IE7 and IE6 on a single Windows XP is somewhat of a pain, the Redmond company produced two virtual machine images designed for integration with Virtual PC 2007 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1.

The previous Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image was made available as a free download in mid April 2007. From the get go Microsoft warned that the image was time-bombed and that it would expire on August 17, 2007. Since July is almost done and over with, the company received numerous customer inquiries related to an update to the two images.

"I've had a few emails the last week or two asking if we're going to update the IE VPCs that are available, as the time-bomb expiry is approaching. I've already started working on them, and should have them online in the next couple of weeks. I'm aiming to get them up by the 10th of August. We'll release an IE6 and an IE7 VPC image again this time both based on Windows XP SP2 + the latest patches," explained Pete LePage, Microsoft Product Manager.

Both of the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC images will deliver a pre-activated copy of Windows XP SP2, and they will be only differentiated by the default browser installed. One will come with Internet Explorer 7 and the other with Internet Explorer 6. Until August 10 however, you can still access the current Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image 2.0.