Internet Explorer 10 to Ignore Windows Vista

If you're running Windows Vista and you're an Internet Explorer faithful user, then IE9 will be the end of the road for you. Computerworld has confirmed with Microsoft that Internet Explorer 10 is meant for Windows 7 and newer.

Windows Vista and XP users trying to install the new IE10 platform preview released earlier this week will get the error message: "Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview does not support any operating system earlier than Windows 7." Microsoft said that this would not change for the final release of IE10.

Even though Windows 7 shares much of its code foundation with Windows Vista, it seems that Microsoft is doing what it can to push ahead to get everyone one the latest operating system.

"Windows Vista customers have a great browsing experience with IE9, but in building IE10 we are focused on continuing to drive the kind of innovation that only happens when you take advantage of the ongoing improvements in modern operating systems and modern hardware," a Microsoft spokeswoman emailed to Computerworld.

"Regarding Windows Vista, our decision with IE9 was not to build to the lowest common denominator," she said. "With IE9 we made the decision to help unlock the best Web experience possible, which means taking advantage of everything around the browser -- including Windows 7 and modern PC hardware."

In some ways, this is a positive move by Microsoft to help prevent another case of Windows XP – needing to support an OS that was past its prime.

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Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.

82 Comments Comment from the forums

joytech22

This news won't really impact many people, IE9 will suffice for Vista users (or chrome/FF/Opera)
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CPU666d1

Here we go again. Just another microsoft excuse to push us to always use the latest operating system for them to make more money and to push us ever closer to the cloud concept,which I hate the idea of thinking about it.
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JackFrost860

I can't blame them for that, but to exclude XP and Win Svr 2003/8 is a mistake.
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alikum

@cpu666d1
Think about transition from Nahelem to Sandy Bridge. It's the same thing and people are still buying them! So there you have it. If you are not happy, stick with Nahelem or go AMD. Same case here. Not happy? Stick to IE9 or take up FF/Chrome or whatever you like.
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LuckyDucky7

Who cares? It's not like Internet Explorer is better than any other browser. IE9 should be good enough for those stuck with Vista, and if it isn't (and it isn't) they ought to use something else, like, say, Firefox or Chrome. No web browser has an ad-blocking solution like Firefox does, for example: which is why I run it on old, old computers (like ones from 2004 and older) because it blocks the ads that suck so much processor time from the actual loading of the page.

It's not a mistake to not support obsolete platforms such as Windows XP. Windows 2000 wasn't supported with as many upgrades as XP was (it's still stuck in IE6 + OE6). Was it a mistake not to give Windows 2000 IE7? No.

There are those who just won't let go of XP/Windows Server 2003 for some reason, and those people need to let go of the OS or get left behind. Besides- you will in 3 years anyways, and there's still room for VM's to take up the slack for slackers who won't re-write their programs for NT 6.x.

So let old OS's die already.
And the cloud is eventually going to be a reality though that won't happen for a while now since always-on mobile internet access isn't reasonably priced enough- so get used to it: though I hate the concept as well (I want a hard disk copy of my files so that when Microsoft screws them up, which WILL happen- remember Sidekick?- I won't lose anything).
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enforcer22

jackfrost860I can't blame them for that, but to exclude XP and Win Svr 2003/8 is a mistake.
Not having support for a supported OS thats going to have ongoing support for many years into the future no i can blame them. Not supporting XP and not to far behind it 2003 i cant blame them. XP at least should have stopped its suppose long ago. 2003 well I'm not sure their support cycles for server OS's. Supporting XP anymore is a mistake. Supporting XP is almost like supporting win98 anymore. Sure people still use both and so does business but thats the penalty to holding onto decade old tech.

Vista on the other hand still pretty much brand new OS. It should be updated with the new tech :/ I see no reason for this other then the people who cry about vista having tons of issues that it at least as far as i can tell doesn't even have.
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Ragnar-Kon

Honestly, a smart business move on Microsoft's part. Supporting an older product just simply costs more money and requires the software engineers to "dumb down" the browser.

Most of us were spoiled in the sense that we were able to use Windows XP (and Windows 2000) when they were WAY past their prime. Windows 2000 was supported for 10 years, and Windows XP will be "supported" for even longer. For a piece of software, that is an extremely long amount of time.

Having said that, Microsoft needs to provide clearer upgrade paths/options for their server operating systems, or perhaps more incentives. Client/consumer machines are typically quicker at adopting new versions. But for servers, the cost to benefit to hassle ratio doesn't make upgrading servers to new versions beneficial for most.
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haplo602

"With IE9 we made the decision to help unlock the best Web experience possible, which means forcing our customers to alternate browsers to look for even better Web experience after IE10 comes out."

that's what they wanted to say or not ?
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CPU666d1

Anyway Chrome and Firefox are better no doubt,but you Alikum must believe in the one world socialist belief of the cloud and to be ruled by a tyrant.
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CPU666d1

Bad luck that we can not ignor windows 7,but we could if they upgraded the browsers for windows XP. Also statcounter may say that windows 7 has out done XP in the US,but if you check out other places they still say XP dominates...
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