Internet Explorer General Manager Dean Hachamovitch all but confirmed today that the next version of Microsoft’s Web browser, Internet Explorer 9 , will not be supported on Windows XP. Hachamovitch stopped short of explicitly saying that XP would not be supported, but said that building a “modern browser” required a “modern operating system.” IE9 will be heavily dependent on hardware acceleration, courtesy of its use of Direct2D and DirectWrite; neither API is available on Windows XP. That IE9 would use these features has been known since last year’s PDC, and so the lack of XP support should come as a surprise to few.

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Unsurprisingly, IE9 won’t be supported on an obsolete OS