At Mix09 today, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer 8 is out of beta and officially released. You can download the installer for Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 or 2008.
If you’re using the Windows 7 beta, you’ll have to stick with the build of IE8 included with the OS (plus this compatibility and reliability update); Microsoft will almost certainly include the final version of IE8 in its Windows 7 Release Candidate, but is unlikely to create an interim update for beta testers.
Over at ZDNet, I’ve just published a new post that takes a close-up look at usability-driven improvements in the IE8 UI. I’m also working on a follow-up post to address the question of performance.
If you’ve installed the final build of IE8, hit the Comments section below and let me know how the upgrade went for you and what you think of the new IE.
Ed Bott 
Installed without a problem over RC 1. It works great. I like everything about it.
Upgrade from RC took less than 15 minutes on Vista including the reboot. Performance seems slightly faster than the RC, particularly on one webmail page I use often – that page worked very poorly in the RC but perfectly in RTM. Nothing has changed for a couple of sites that displayed improperly or not at all in the RC. No major surprises, but compared to the RC, better in some respects and the same in others.
Installed with no problems. Transferred all my beta settings fine. Wouldnt recommend the MSN “optimisations”. Its a big ugly tolbar that looks really out of place. Other that that I like it. Its what my wife and kids have got used to but ill stick to flock browser / chrome.
Managed to crash it instantly on first and second sites I visited. Both are in our corporate DMZ, and work fine from outside. Maybe some group policy issues or AntiVirus interfering. Will try to figure it tomorrow.
Installed it on a WinXP netbook. Went on fine, checked a few sites that the version installed in Win7 7000 doesn’t render properly, and they worked fine too.
I think l’ll use IE 8 this week since it’s new and probably go back to using Firefox.
Installed IE 8 and the only thing i find weird is when closing Internet Explorer 8 i have 2 ieexplorer.exe processes is still running. Is it normal for the ieexplorer.exe to run even when IE 8 is close?
Installed fast and smooth on my Vista Ultimate machine that was already running IE8 RC1. Seems to be somewhat speedier than the RC1, but that’s hard to really tell. IE8 is my favorite browser, though, and I actually run all the major ones out there!
I installed IE8 successfully (on XP SP3) a few minutes after it was released. I was surprised how fast it downloaded–sometimes the servers bog down under first day download traffic volumes. Install went fast, reboot hung (although probably unrelated to IE8 install), and the laptop came back fine. Not surprising since the Beta was so good, but web applications like Outlook Web Access and Hotmail are SIGNIFICANTLY faster than under IE7. The only (minor) anomaly I’ve seen is some unusual background images in some commercial software, and checking Firefox, I see the same thing there too. Something that IE7 must have glossed over for some reason. All in all, a great update that I would recommend to any IE user, although I’m not sure it is quite enough to pry me away from Firefox just yet.
Same configuration and experience as Matthew above. Definitely a good upgrade for IE 7 users. For FF ones, not sure there’s enough there to make them switch.
opps i mean iexplore.exe
Installed OK. Runs OK. I was writing a comment on this post in IE8, and found a pretty bad bug:
– I wrote my name and comment, forgot to put the email
– hit submit
– got an error page telling me I needed to put my email
– pressed the back button
– Horror! my comment was gone! I typed all of that for nothing!
This is a deal breaker. I think it’s not OK nowadays for a browser to do this… I thought this was a thing of the past, like from the nineties… I guess FF has spoiled me.
So there you have it. IE8 lasted for about 10 minutes, and I deem it unacceptable for any kind of serious use.
It looks OK otherwise, I bet it must be quite a step up from IE7.
There’s that, and also the dozen FF extensions I can’t do without anymore.
I’m surprised at how quickly this upgrade from IE7 installed on my Vista-64.
Installed it on my home Vista box and it felt a lot zippier than IE7. I would say it feels just like FF, and the Foxmarks add-on worked great.
The accelerators are super addictive. I can finally get rid of the google toolbar because of the map-it accelerator (I only used the toolbar so that addresses get highlighted and automatically linked).
Accelerators and the zippy feel might convince me to switch over to IE from FF for regular browsing!
Installed on my home PC (XP SP3, 2GB RAM, Athlon XP 2600) and it is a disaster.
It takes around two and a half minutes to load (even just after exiting from it) during which time there’s minimal disk activity and CPU is pegged at 100% or so).
RC1 was fine.
I see others on the IEBlog with the same kind of problem.
Phil, have you tried running No Add-ons mode or resetting all IE options? It sounds like an add-on is hanging at startup.
No problems installing – it was surprisingly quick and easy – not like the IE7 upgrade.
Would like to maximize the browsing area – so many toolbars and tab-bars and menu bars ..
Installed on an XP SP3 machine and while the browser works fine, my CD/DVD drive has disappeared from Explorer and doesn’t work. If I hadn’t seen other posts online about the same problem, I wouldn’t have believed it. Everything was working, installed IE8 and the drive is non-functional.
I can only guess that given IE’s tight integration with Windows is at the root of this, but I’m really confused by this one . . .
Duncan, the disappearing CD/DVD drive is a longstanding issue caused by installing programs like iTunes. I am 99.9% certain IE8 had nothing to do with it. The solution is described in this KnowledgeBase article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060
Thanks, Ed. Though I haven’t installed anything else on that box in weeks, your fix did the trick. I guess that’s why you’re doing this and I’m retired from the IT game.
Cheers,