Internet Explorer Platform Preview
by Sadik on 18/03/10 at 5:36 am
Microsoft has announced the release of a new platform to test it’s upcoming Internet Explorer 9 version, in what it has branded as “Internet Explorer Platform Preview”. The official Internet Explorer Blog released the following Information about the platform preview.
Today we’re excited to release the first ever Internet Explorer Platform Preview. The Platform Preview provides developers an early look at some of the features coming to Internet Explorer, enabling them to try out the new capabilities of the platform.
The reason given for the release of this platform preview and not a full Beta is that Microsoft is interested in getting immediate feedback from developers and for people to try out the new high ACID3 score compared to previous versions, support for CSS 3, HTML 5 and Hardware Acceleration.
Here’s the detailed explanation of what the Internet Explorer Platform Preview is:
What It Is
The Internet Explorer Platform Preview is a light-weight frame around the core IE platform which includes the rendering and layout, object model, parsing, and script engines. It’s a way to try out the platform, and the experience improvements we’re making to performance, standards support and interoperability, enabling “the same markup” to work.
We designed the Platform Preview to be installed, side by side with IE8. The Platform Preview is not a replacement for your daily browser; for example, the Preview does not have an address bar, a back button, anti-phishing or malware protection. The Platform Preview does include debugging and diagnostics tools for developers. It also includes a way to provide feedback. The top level menus include Report Issue. You can find more information on how to use the Platform Preview in the User Guide.
This is the first Platform Preview. We will update it approximately every 8 weeks on the road to Beta. Each update will provide a more complete look at the IE9 platform. The Platform Preview along with these updates and the reporting tools are designed to speed up the feedback loop between developers and the IE platform.
Also the FAQ page for the Internet Explorer Platform Preview gives the following explanation for it’s release instead of a full-fledged Beta:
Why not just release a full beta?
The Platform Preview is not intended to replace the beta version that will be released as a full browser once the build has reached the customer quality bar for release. Microsoft is releasing the Platform Preview to give developers the opportunity to test and provide feedback on the underlying platform for Internet Explorer 9. You can find more about what is implemented in the release notes.
While all of this looks good, as a long time developer, I still had serious doubts if Microsoft can get things right with IE with it’s 9 release. I only had to get little far when I discovered this:
Does Platform Preview run on Windows XP?
No. Internet Explorer 9’s GPU-powered graphics take advantage of new technologies available in Windows 7 and back-ported only to Windows Vista. These technologies depend on advancements in the display driver model introduced first in Windows Vista.
This effectively rules me out from trying out the new platform preview and I would suspect hundreds of other developers. Microsoft’s Hachamovitch confirmed in a Q&A with press and analysts following the keynote that IE 9 will not support XP. The preview only runs on Vista SP2 and higher.
