In a recent post to the IE blog, Jane Maliouta, a Microsoft program manager, warned users who downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) Beta 1 prior to updating Windows XP to Service Pack 3 (SP3) that they won’t be able to uninstall either the service pack or Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) if they decide to upgrade IE8 to Beta 2. However, further upgrades of IE8 will still be available to them.

It is recommended that users first uninstall Windows XP SP3, then uninstall IE8 Beta 1; they should then reinstall XP SP3 and follow that by installing IE8 Beta 2.

Maliouta said: “Windows XP users who do have the first beta already on their machines will be offered the update to Beta 2 via Windows Update if they have Automatic Updates enabled”.

She then continued “Several additional updates are required before installing IE8 Beta 2 on Vista …. Windows Vista users will not see IE8 Beta 2 in Windows Update because the update is unable to find instances of IE8 Beta 1 and uninstall them automatically. Instead, users must remove Beta 1 manually”.
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