Microsoft nas announced that Internet Explorer 7 will be distributed through WSUS (Windows Software Update Services) on Feb. 12, 2008, which is the next Patch Tuesday. It will appear as an "Update Rollup."
The default configuration for WSUS is not to apply update rollups automatically. Note this, in contrast to some hysterical reporting using words such as "force" and "impending autoupgrade." So, unless you"ve changed that setting, you won"t get IE7 on your IE6 systems without approval. If you have made such a change on your WSUS, you"ll need to follow a procedure detailed in the KB article in order to skip this one.