Microsoft has finally readied Internet Explorer 7 for public consumption.

However, current user reports are not good. One user on Neowin.net said:

No, much, much worse than IE 6. This program is ugly, it renders badly, and it’s just a pain to use. For some reason, whenever I create a new tab, it says “Christian Hammond” for a second.

Terrible, terrible product, and Microsoft has lost me as an IE user completely. PC Mag seems to agree with me.

Users on the Internet Explorer usegroup are also reporting problems with streaming video and audio.

Release notes also have some other interesting problems. Notably:

• Repair Install of WinXP does not work after Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview is installed. Remove all versions of Internet Explorer 7 before you attempt to run Repair Install. (See section on Uninstalling IE7.) [Good times]
• Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) [Microsoft Office team service] cannot import spreadsheets when Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview is running.
• If you notice a problem connecting to web sites after upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview, and you are navigating through a Proxy, it may be due to Auto Detection problems.
• [and] Internet Proxy Navigation Speed — If you notice noticeable delay in navigation to web sites after upgrading to IE7 and you are navigating through a Proxy, it may be due to Auto Detection problems. [The solution to both these problems is to turn off Auto detection]

There are also lots of disabled and/or removed support for certain things in this version. Such as ActiveX controls (though, this can be enabled), SSLv2 support, view source, and status bar scripting (this can be enabled too).

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