On April 25, at 12:01 a.m. EST, Microsoft will open the Internet Explorer (IE) 7 Beta 2 floodgates – and the phone support lines. Microsoft is set to post for download from the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web site Beta 2 of IE 7 for Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2 customers. It also will post simultaneously new IE 7 Beta 2 builds for Windows XP 64-bit editions and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1. Until now, the only standalone test versions of IE 7 that Microsoft had delivered was the XP SP2 version.
IE 7, which Microsoft will release both as a standalone browser and as an integrated component of Windows Vista, includes a number of new features and functionality, including tabbed browsing, advanced printing, integrated RSS feed support, anti-phishing and other security-focused enhancements, and more standards-adherent CSS support. IE 7 Beta 2 follows on the heels of two different browser versions labeled as "IE 7 Beta 2 Preview." Microsoft distributed these builds, which ran on XP SP2 only, in February 2006 and March 2006.