From the facts about IE9 it looks really interesting that it supports HTML5 and x.264 videos.

Windows 2000 and earlier are past End-of-Life, and by its name Windows 2000 is a decade old (a geological epoch, if not era, in computer technology terms). That said, its Service Pack 4 version was one of the best, most stable versions of Windows ever released up until then and for some time thereafter. Windows 98 Second Edition was likewise the best of the non-HAL Windows.

Remember than Windows XP got a well-deserved bad rap until Service Pack 2 came out (about as bad as Vista had even after its Service Packs), and many non-techies think that that still applies. There are thus quite a few people still using these older OSes (and as a result being a serious danger to us all, as their computers are way too easily zombified if they hook up to the Internet). They simply cannot upgrade to IE7, let alone IE9, without also upgrading their OS and in many cases buying a whole new computer.

And no, making a version of IE9 that can work on those older OSes is out of the question. There are core capabilities of the newer OSes that IE 7 and up absolutely require in order to work, which are not present on nor addable to the older OSes.

Windows 7 is a wonderful OS (especially for being a pre-SP), but too many got burned with previous pre-SP versions of Windows, and are likely waiting for at least Service Pack 1 before upgrading, perhaps even from Windows 2000 (or even NT4 SP6 in some cases!).

On another subject: I heard a rumor that IE9 will not be using the Trident layout engine at all, but that it’s a whole new engine even more secure than OP. Is this true, or are they saving that for IE10 or some future product?

I will try some CSS testings with the new preview versions. I am excited about the results.

The number of people who won’t — or CAN’T — upgrade to Vista or Windows 7 is still shockingly high. I myself am part of that group. Unless Microsoft changes their mind and makes IE9 compatible with Windows XP — and I very highly doubt they will do so — IE9 will change almost nothing, because a very large number of people will be stuck using — and coding for — older versions.

Worse yet is the fact that many developers can’t test their sites in IE9 simply because they can’t run it. Considering Microsoft’s dreadful history of crashes and security issues (both often being caused by the most appallingly stupid of mistakes), this is a very serious problem.