Versions of IE with various Service Packs (Win XP)

On Mother's Day, I visited my mother and noticed that, even though she has SP3 installed on her Win XP Home PC, she still has IE 6. I was thinking IE 7 was part of a Service Pack update somewhere along the way, but apparently not. Just looking for confirmation here.

 

IE 7 came as an automatic (express) Windows Update, a long time ago. Don't know why your mom doesn't have it installed. As far as I remember it was separate from other updates? http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx

 

Thanks, you've confirmed the way I thought it worked. Mom, an elderly senior citizen, usually calls on me - I have 5 siblings - when she has computer questions but sometimes someone else may do something to her computer or she may call her ISP tech support. I cringe when she does the latter because she may say they had her change something in her computer to resolve some issue but she can't explain to me exactly what they did.

I suspect IE 7 was installed at one point and then somehow got uninstalled. I'll plan on installing it the next time I visit her.

I may try to get her using Firefox. I tried that once in the past but she drifted back to IE. She still has version 2 of FF. I'll also update it.

 

Great that you can help your mom. As a senior citizen I help sometimes (over the phone) my daughter with her computer if it 's fairly easy. It's actually my grandson who uses it. My friends don't have a computer therefore I'm pretty much on my own so I understand your mom using tech help sometimes even though she's got kids.

IE 7 is safer than IE 6 and so is the latest version of FF. I've been using FF for over 4½ years and love it. Only use IE for WU and if no other choice. Hardly remember how to use it.