The Support Lifecycle for Internet Explorer
As you have probably heard, the Internet Explorer team released Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) on March 19th. This is a huge milestone and we want to congratulate everyone in the IE team on the accomplishment. If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to read more about IE8 at http://www.microsoft.com/ie.
In today’s post, I wanted to take a moment to explain the Support Lifecycle for Internet Explorer. With the recent release, we have already received a number of questions about IE8 and the impact to the Support Lifecycle of other versions of IE.
First, I should probably provide a general explanation of the Support Lifecycle for “components”. Generally, A “component” is defined as a set of files or features that are included with a Microsoft product, whether it is shipped with the product, included in a product service pack, or later made available as a web download for the product. Under the Support Lifecycle policy, we support components with the product or service pack that it shipped for. The product to which a component is associated normally is specified in the component’s end-user license agreement (EULA). Generally, we don’t end support for a component unless we ship a newer version of the component as a part of a product’s service pack.
Internet Explorer is considered as a component of the operating system (OS) for which it was released. The support timelines for IE are inherited from the OS and its associated service packs. Basically, this means that the versions of Internet Explorer that shipped for a specific OS or service pack will be supported with the support lifecycle of the OS or service pack. Support for older versions of IE will not end unless we ship a replacement version of IE in a future OS service pack.
Internet Explorer 8, for example, is supported on the following Windows operating systems:
· Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later
· Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or later
· Windows Vista RTM or later
· Windows Server 2008 RTM or later
As per the policy, we will not end support previous versions of Internet Explorer on supported operating system versions.
I hope everyone is still with me... J Let’s look at a couple of examples ensure everyone is clear: With Windows Vista we included Internet Explorer 7 (IE7). Now that IE8 has been released we will continue to support IE7 on Vista. IE7 will continue to be supported with Vista unless we ship a newer version of IE in a future OS service pack.
I’ve already explained the situation for Vista, but what about Windows XP? The situation for Windows XP is very similar. Both IE6 and IE7 will continue to be supported with Windows XP. They will continue to be supported until the end of support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. We made a similar announcement on the Support Lifecycle website, when IE7 was released.
There is one other thing I should cover… Since IE is a component of the OS, customers must upgrade to a supported service pack to continue to receive support for IE. If you not are running on a supported OS service pack, you will need to upgrade to continue to receive security updates or be eligible for any of our other support options (such as Premier, Pro or Pay Per Incident cases).
I hope that makes the situation for components and IE more clear. If you have any feedback regarding this policy, or alternative ways to explain it, please let us know!
*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*
