14 DAY TRIAL // Customers running Windows 7 and Windows Vista are starting to see automatic upgrades to Internet Explorer 9 RTW being offered to them through Windows Update.
The Redmond company had already started offering IE9 RTW to early adopters involved in the testing process for the Beta or Release Candidate (RC) development milestones.
However, the software giant is also starting to upgrade customers that were not among the IE9 Beta and RC testers to the latest iteration on Internet Explorer, according to Mary-Jo Foley.
There have been incorrect interpretations of some statements made by Ryan Gavin, Senior Director, Internet Explorer Business and Marketing at the end of March 2011, revealing that IE9 RTW would only be distributed via WU in June 2011.
This is not true. “Internet Explorer 9 will not be broadly rolled out on Windows Update until the end of June,” is what Gavin had stated at the time.
However, on March 29th, he also added “Windows Update [distribution] for all our Windows customers will start sometime next month [April] and by the end of June we will have a great sense of the enthusiasm on Windows 7 for IE9.”
This means that the software giant indeed started pushing IE9 RTW upgrades through WU to Windows 7 and Vista customers outside of the testing pool for the browser’s two public milestones.
However, as Gavin had emphasized, distribution and broad distribution are two very different things, scale-wise at least.
According to the Redmond company, customers that will scan for new updates on Windows Updates are bound to be offered IE9 RTW.
Still, IE9 will not be downloaded and installed automatically. Users will need to give green light to the IE9 upgrade, even though the Internet Explorer 9 update is present in WU.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2 is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows Vista SP2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 SP2 64-bit edition is available for download here.
Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 64-bit edition, Windows 7 SP1 64-bit edition, Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit edition is available for download here.