Microsoft has released an update for IE 7. The big news – it no longer requires Windows Validation. This means you can install it even if MS detects your copy of windows is not genuine.

I downloaded it to see if there were any other differences. You can do the same by just downloading the latest copy from Microsoft. If you already have IE 7 installed it will simply update it.

One change I noticed right away…can you see it?

Here is the original IE 7:

Here is the latest IE 7

THEY TURNED THE MENU BACK ON!

Damn. I wonder how many nasty emails they got about that one. What made them think getting rid of the menu was a good idea? I always found myself cursing because I had to use the keyboard to force the menu to appear.

Eventually after getting 100s of emails about it, and finding the registry key for it, we released an IE 7 tweaking tool that could turn it back on.

I am glad MS woke up and started listening to customers….maybe there still is hope for Vista

Update: I guess there is no hope for Vista. According to some of my readers, the update is for the XP version of IE 7 only.