There seems to be some confusion about what you can and cant do with Internet Explorer on Windows XP Service Pack 3.

In a nutshell:- A brand new PC with XP will ship with IE6. If you upgrade to Windows XP SP3, IE6 will still be your installed Microsoft Internet Browser.

If you choose to install to IE7 on Windows XP SP3 you *CANNOT* uninstall it, you have to uninstall Service Pack 3 as well.

There is a workaround (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx)

Users who want to retain the ability to downgrade from IE7 to IE6 should uninstall the former before upgrading to XP SP3. Once Windows XP has been updated to SP3, users can then install IE7. That process allows for reverting to IE6 in the future.

“The restriction on uninstalling only applies to when you install a Windows Service Pack release on top of a stand-alone IE release.

So this really is a line in the sand. If you need IE6 for compatibility reasons then do not upgrade to IE7 on Windows XP SP3.

For your average user I would say IE7 on Windows XP SP3 would be the way to go.

I understand why Microsoft has done this. I am just worried what happens if IE7 get corrupted on a Windows XP SP3 machine. It sounds like it could get messy.