IE 5.5 Platform Preview Now 'Available'

Internet Explorer 5.5 Platform Preview was released on December 1st to MSDN subscribers, although rumors about an eventual public release have been circling for weeks. A few BetaNews readers have not only discovered the Active Setup file on Microsoft's public download servers, but have also figured out a way to download the bits.

The following instructions were not created or verified by BetaNews, so perform them at your own risk. Many users have reported back successfully, but it is possible these are not the final release bits and may contain bugs. We at BetaNews recommend you wait until notification of the release is sent by Microsoft, whereupon no tweaking of the setup files will be required.

1. Download http://download.microsoft.com/download/ie5/55pprevu/5.5/W9XNT4/EN-US/ie5setup.exe from Microsoft's download server.

2. Run the setup file you just downloaded, but do not click past the first screen.

3. Instead, click on the Start menu, then Search, and finally 'For Files or Folders...'

4. Search for the file 'iesetup.inf' - most likely located within C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\IXP000.TMP - and open the iesetup.inf file for editing.

5. Within the iesetup.inf file, under the section [Strings] you will find two values, URL2 and MSSITEURL, both equal to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie55/download/rtw/x86/ie5sites.dat. Change both of these so they are equal to c:\ie5sites.dat instead.

6. Create a text file in your root C:\ directory named ie5sites.dat and within it, place the following line, including quotes:

"http://download.microsoft.com/download/ie5/55pprevu/5.5/W9XNT4/EN-US/","Download Site 0","EN","North America"

Press enter to get your cursor on a new line below, then save and exit the file.

7. Continue the IE 5.5 Active Setup program you had running to finish installing the Platform Preview.