Today during his keynote speech at the RSA Conference, Bill Gates announced Microsoft's on going commitment to provide safer web browsing for Windows Customers. As part of this it was revealed that the first beta of Internet Explorer 7 will arrive this Summer for Windows XP SP2.

This goes against a decision made back in 2003 which was that a new version of Internet Explorer would require a new version of Windows and not be available as a standalone for other versions (Windows XP featured Internet Explorer 6, and would receive upgrades to IE6 SP1/SP2 as part of a service pack update). As Windows Longhorn has been taking some time in arriving I welcome this update for XP, however I hope Internet Explorer 7 will not be an entirely security focused release. Since Internet Explorer 6 in 2001 a great many things have come onto the web scene, some technologies which are in IE6 simply do not fully work as they are meant to/’modern’ versions are not implemented at all, CSS support is a good example. This is something which really does need to be addressed. Bill also announced that Windows® AntiSpyware technology would be made available with no additional charge.

Press Release

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/feb05/02-15RSA05KeynotePR.asp

IE Team Blog:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx

In preparation for moving to my university hall I've transferred this blog to the new mvps.org server so hopefully the page should be loading a bit quicker and you should no longer come across 'HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too Many Users Are Connected' errors J

Over the past few days Microsoft have also placed a few more knowledge base articles online regarding application compatibility and SP2

Some programs seem to stop working after you install Windows XP Service Pack 2 because of the Windows Firewall

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=842242

Programs that may behave differently in Windows XP Service Pack 2

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130&product=windowsxpsp2

I did see some comments regarding these articles in the Windows XP Public newsgroups which said that based on these lists SP2 was a disaster. Considering how much has been tightened up in Windows it's good that so few applications require a change, but really at the end of the day isn't having to download the latest version of Nero worth it to have a much more secure base operating system? I'd rather this to a repeat performance of the RPC/MSBLAST debacle. Certainly for quite a number of the security products on that list its not that they wouldn't work, just that they would not interact with the new security center properly. It's worth checking the list before you install Service Pack 2 so you are aware of any problems if your using any of the applications listed. Service Pack 1 is still supported for 12 months after the release of Service Pack 2 so if an application you need does not have an update available yet it’s possible to stay on SP1 for a while and continue to get updates.

Another interesting article I came across this weekend was in David Massy's Blog who works on the Internet Explorer team regarding Transparent PNGs, or the lack alpha channel support in Internet Explorer 6.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dmassy/archive/2004/08/05/209428.aspx

NOTE:  Release Candidate 2 of Service Pack 2 is still Beta software, and may cause unforeseen problems on your system.  This shouldn't be installed on a system which you cannot afford to reinstall. The final version should be with us Summer 2004.

In terms of Media Center this will update any previous non beta version of Windows XP Media Center 2002 or 2004 to build 5.1.2600.2149. This is mainly a bug fix/performance update rather than adding new features.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 2 (Full Network Installer): 
http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/6/C169BA60-E2D6-4C5F-B4F2-23DA024C9FA8/xpSP2.exe

Service Pack 2 RC2 Release Notes:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/relsprc2.mspx