Microsoft has released a reliability update for Internet Explorer 8 on the Windows 7 operating system. Yesterday, on the 24th, Microsoft began the release of five test updates which were dummy updates that tested the Windows Update system. The IE8 update is available via Windows Update on your Windows 7 build 7000 operating system or via Microsoft.com (see the links at the bottom of the article for download).

Here is some of the important information found on the IEBlog about the update:

One of the approaches that we use to analyze this data is called a failure curve. A failure curve is essentially a bar chart where each bar represents a unique failure (crash, hang, etc.). The height of the bar represents the number of occurrences in the last 30 days. Below you can see the failure curve for Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7 Beta. The color indicates whether the failure is caused by Internet Explorer or a 3rd party toolbar or extension running inside of Internet Explorer.

Most of the issues that we discovered through the Beta are fixed in the Release Candidate 1 which is now available for Windows Vista and Windows XP. We also wanted some of these fixes to reach our Windows 7 Beta users now. We decided to piggyback onto this first update for the Windows 7 Beta.

This update will address many of the top crashes and hangs from the Windows 7 Beta, which includes those caused by Internet Explorer as well as 3^rd party components like Adobe Flash, Adobe Acrobat, and several others. We have also included fixes to enable printing PDF files and an architectural change which improves cookie management. This update does not contain other changes introduced between the Windows 7 Beta and Internet Explorer 8 Release Candidate 1.

The post on the IEBlog was written by Herman Ng, Program Manager for Internet Explorer. Today’s update only applies to Windows 7 build 7000, or the Beta build. If you have the latest copy of Windows 7 out there: 7022, this update will not be necessary.

Here are the download links for the update:

- Update for Windows 7 Client Beta (KB962921)

- Update for Windows 7 Client Beta for x64-based Systems (KB962921)

- Update for Windows 7 Server Beta for Itanium-based Systems (KB962921)

- Update for Windows 7 Server Beta for x64-based Systems (KB962921)

Related posts:

1. Microsoft Releases Hotfix for “Parameter is Incorrect” Error Windows 7 Beta and Server 2008 R2 users may receive...
2. Windows 7 Build 7032 - Screenshots and Info The first screenshots and information about the 7032 build of...
3. Windows 7 - Build 7022 Leaked for Download! The latest version of Microsoft's Windows 7 was leaked to...
4. Windows 7 Build 7025 Screenshots Leaked Screenshots of the latest build of Microsoft's Windows 7 Beta...
5. Beta Users Will Receive Test Updates Starting February 24th, Windows 7 Beta users will see five...