IE9 RTW Update to Fix Hardware Acceleration Glitch with Third-Party Hypervisors

[zeon22]

With less than a day before release, it’s too late for Microsoft to resolve an issue in Internet Explorer 9 when the browser is running inside virtual machines in third-party hypervisors.

However, the Redmond company confirmed the problem, and revealed that it’s hard at work on a fix, which is scheduled to come after IE9 will be released to web later today.

The software giant did not specify the virtualization solutions that IE9 fails to play nice with, but did reveal that the glitch was discovered with the help of VMWare.

According to Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc, there is an issue in IE9 which blocks third party hypervisors from making the best out the hardware acceleration feature of the next generation of Internet Explorer.

“As a result, IE9 will default to software rendering when running in some virtual machines,” LeBlanc stated.

“Internet Explorer 9 interacts with non-Microsoft hypervisors differently than earlier versions of Internet Explorer.

“Microsoft is working on a prioritized update to Internet Explorer 9 and plans to make it available in the coming weeks to ensure that customers using third party hypervisors, such as those offered by VMware and other vendors will have the best possible experience.”

IE9 RTW downloads will go live at 9 p.m. today, with Microsoft having confirmed the release for the SXSW event in Austin, TX.

The release to web of IE9 comes one year after the first Platform Preview of the browser was introduced at MIX 2010, and at just a little after the first month since the Release Candidate (RC) bits will go live.

Hypervisors are virtualization solutions which allow multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on the same machine by emulating and sharing the hardware resources available.

Microsoft did not say, but it appears that its own hypervisor technology, Hyper-V has no issues preventing IE9’s hardware acceleration capabilities to run at normal parameters.

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