We all know that Microsoft is all set to release its latest  version of browser Internet Explorer 9 in few months. Internet Explorer 9 has many new features and is ready to compete against Google Chrome5, Firefox 3.6 and other browsers. Meanwhile Internet Explorer 9 comes with many new problems and one among them is  “Internet Explorer 9 doesn’t work in Windows XP“.

Before going to problems part we would like to give some cool new features of IE9.

1. JavaScript Background Compilation
2. Type Optimizations
3. Fast Interpreter
4. Supports HTML5 and CSS3
5. SVG support

We suggest: Want to explore more about these features? Click Link1 and Link2.

All are new features :), are  you surprised by the Microsoft move?Yes?

Ok then let me tell you more about IE9. We all Bloggers are mostly amazed by the Windows7 and most of them have switched from Windows XP to Windows7 and also from  Windows Vista to Windows7 as it had many problems.

When we tried IE9 preview and demos, It looked perfect and we totally went crazy about the features of IE9. But when we tried on Windows XP we just got to know Microsoft killed Windows XP with its IE9! A dialog box popped out stating

Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview does not support any operating system earlier than Windows Vista SP2

What do you have to say about it? Microsoft clearly says no to nearly decade old operating system Windows XP! Now let us put in front the main reasons behind why IE9 doesn’t work in Windows XP. These are the 5 main reasons we found why IE9 doesn’t support Windows XP:

1. DirectX

IE9 uses the Direct2D feature of DirectX when accessing the graphics hardware to accelerate image creation and drawing. Direct2D was introduced in Windows 7, but then added to Windows Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2. But not to Windows XP.

2. Security

Windows XP users have a fast, safe, reliable and private browser in Internet Explorer 8 that IE9 doesn’t provide for XP.

3. Graphics

Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001, which XP doesn’t have.

4. Hardware and OS

IE9 is intended to be run on a modern operating system in order to build on the latest hardware and operating system innovations.

5. Multi core

IE9 require a discrete graphics card and prefer multiple cores. Such things didn’t exist in XP.

Several users say it might be one of the marketing strategy by Microsoft to switch from  Windows XP users to Vista or Windows7, and may be Microsoft has totally stopped support to Windows XP and may not include XP in any of its future Software releases.

If this is true then for sure Microsoft will suffer big blow as Windows XP has more than 60% users in world using it when compared to 15% and 11% share on vista and Windows7.

What about other browser vendors, such as Opera, Mozilla and Google. Are these players abandoning XP? No! Here’s what Google Chrome developer Alex Russell had to say:

I recognize Opera and Mozilla and on Chrome we’re all doing hardware acceleration. And, all of us are doing it on XP. What you’re describing is a situation where people are less behind. The way is to not leave users behind.

Tech Tip: After all, upgrading to a different browser might be a whole lot easier (and cheaper) than upgrading the entire OS. After all, if Chrome, Firefox and Opera are all going to be able to do everything (or most) of that Internet Explorer 9 can do without having to upgrade the OS

If you know any other reasons feel free to use our comment box and share your views 🙂 Thanks for reading 🙂

We Suggest:

• Internet Explorer 9 Won’t Run on Windows XP by Gizmodo
• Is Microsoft using Internet Explorer 9 to force upgrades from XP?