The latest incarnation of Microsoft Internet Explorer will not be able to run on Windows XP, according to Microsoft executives.

While two newer whole versions of Windows have already succeeded it (Vista and Windows 7), Windows XP is still admittedly popular among many people. Microsoft seems to be putting its foot down on cutting ties with the decade-old operating system by declaring that Internet Explorer 9, the newest version of Microsoft’s pet browser, will not be compatible with Windows XP.

Even the preview version of IE 9 will spew an error message saying that “Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview does not support any operating system earlier than Windows Vista SP2″ when a user attempts to run it from Windows XP. And not just that, plans to make IE 9 compatible with any non-Windows system is absent from any Microsoft drawing board as of now, confirms Microsoft IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch.

It seems that IE 9 uses the Direct2D interface of DirectX when rendering images and utilizing graphics acceleration. Problem is, Direct2D was first introduced in Windows 7, and later added to Windows Vista through the SP2 update, and in Windows Server 2008 R2.

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