Today, Microsoft released Beta 3 of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP (Service Pack 2 required), Windows XP Professional x64, and Windows Server 2003. (Direct download link is here.)
My comments are over at ZDNet.
IE7 Beta 3 is out
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4 thoughts on “IE7 Beta 3 is out”
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Ed Bott 
Over the years, Microsoft products have been a mixed experience for me. Some, like OneNote and Word are very useable.
Old Money 97 is still on board, but the latest version has serious bloat-itis.
IE7 beta had the annoying habit of losing the ability to go get Favorites that had worked for years on ver 6. Others have complained about this bug, too.
For me, it’s back to IE6 for while to come.
Fortunately, a buggy app doesn’t spell disaster, thanks to a good imaging program that makes all the dumb problems go away in a few minutes!
I have been using IE7 Beta 2 Preview since April 14th and absolutely love it. Flawless installation, all IE6 and Google Toolbar setting carried over correctly, everything works perfectly and as advertised. The only rough spot – not all the features in Favorites works but no other problems of any type and I have been beating it to death!
I have used both Firefox and IE6 and I will never go back to either. Good job Microsoft – you got this one right for a change)!
Update – Expecting the same smooth sailing as I enjoyed with IE7 Beta 2 I downloaded and attempted to install IE7 Beta 3 tonight (6/30) and got the message IE7 Beta 3 could not install. I followed all the instructions in the troubleshooting articles but the Beta 3 install was not to be.
I was able to (thankfully) reinstall IE7 Beta 2 without a problem and I provided all pertinent feedback to Microsoft.
Update 2: The Microsoft (Beta) feedback people got right back to me and said the problem is with ZoneAlarm. An incompatibility exists with it and ZoneAlarm must be fully uninstalled for the IE7 Beta 3 to install. Here are the steps I followed;
Took a system checkpoint (System Restore Panel)
Uninstalled IE7 Beta 2 (from Control Panel)
Uninstalled ZoneAlarm (from Control Panel)
Rebooted system
Turned off AVG anti-virus (I’m not running any pop-up/spyware software)
Installed IE7 Beta 3 without a hitch. Went nice and smooth – all settings (including Google) carried over.
The reinstalling of ZoneAlarm then became the major headache. Got message file ZPY.DLL could not be found. Downloaded it and it still wouldn’t install (different error messages now). Seems the ZoneAlarm uninstall left several garbage files and registry entries behind and I had to remove them manually. CCleaner and RegSeeker will do the work in cleaning out the registry junk, but I had to manually delete the leftover ZoneAlarm files and folders from C:\Program Files\Zone Labs and C:\Windows\system32\ZoneLabs. Now ZoneAlarm installed OK. This messy uninstall-reinstall is uncharacteristic for ZoneLabs.
Anyway IE7 Beta 3 working just fine.