'What are they going to do, go to Linux or run XP forever?' she asked. Windows XP users will solve the browser problem themselves when they upgrade, as most eventually will, to Windows 7. 'This is the stick to get off XP,' she said. Tough, said Sheri McLeish, Forrester Research's browser analyst. 'Those who choose to stay with XP will be forced to stay forever on IE8, which will become the new IE6,' said a user named Danny Gibbons in a comment on Hachamovich's blog. Some users worried that by halting browser development for Windows XP, Microsoft would repeat a current problem, getting customers to ditch IE6 for a newer version. Support for those APIs is built into Windows 7, and was added to Vista and Windows Server 2008 last October, but cannot be extended to Windows XP. Windows XP's inability to run the Platform Preview or the final browser stems from, IE9's graphics hardware acceleration, which relies on the Direct2D and DirectWrite DirectX APIs (applications programming interfaces). 'Internet Explorer 9 requires the modern graphics and security underpinnings that have come since 2001,' she added, clearly referring to XP, which appeared that year. Tuesday, a company spokeswoman said the new browser needs a 'modern operating system,' a phrase that hasn't been paired with Window XP for years. Microsoft had offered up broad hints that IE9 was not in Windows XP's future, however. 'Dropping Windows XP support is one of the worst decisions ever taken by IE team, probably even worse than disbanding the IE team back in the IE6 days,' claimed an anonymous commenter. Others bashed Microsoft on the assumption that IE9 would never run on XP. Really, enough is enough of keeping users in the lurch about Windows XP support.' 'Please tell whether the final version will run on Windows XP SP3 or not,' said someone identified as 'eXPerience' in a comment to a blog post by Dean Hachamovich, Microsoft's general manager for the IE team. That caused some users to demand a straight answer.

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