We’ve known since the beginning that Microsoft has been holding back on parts of Internet Explorer 7’s functions when the new browser was launched for Windows XP. Microsoft has earlier made it very clear that IE7 will be released for Windows XP but that it will not integrate all of IE7 from Windows Vista. For this reason Microsoft has now announced at its IEBlog that the Vista version of Internet Explorer 7 will be called IE7+. Basically the differences between IE7 and IE7+ are very few, but there are a couple of security-linked functions it has been unable to transfer to the Windows XP platform.
“While all versions of IE7 are built from the same code base, there are some important differences in IE7+, most significantly the addition of Windows Vista-only features like Protected Mode, Parental Controls, and improved Network Diagnostics. These features take advantage of big changes in Windows Vista and weren’t practical to bring downlevel.”
