Though Internet Explorer 10 is a shipping and built-in part of Windows 8, it's still not out for Windows 7. Microsoft hasn't announced when exactly it will be out for its older platform, but users shouldn't be waiting much longer: participants on the private beta program have been told that they won't be receiving any more beta versions, and that the next build will be the release build. This was first reported by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley.
Until the final release, Windows 7 users wanting to try the newest version of Microsoft's browser will have to make do with a preview release that came out in November.
The slowness in releasing what should amount to an identical browser to the one that's already available for Windows 8 appears to be caused, at least in part, by Microsoft's development and porting of various Windows 8 features to Windows 7. Windows 8 includes updated versions of several Windows technologies such as the Direct2D accelerated drawing API and the DirectWrite text API. These updated APIs are being shipped as a platform update for Windows 7 that's currently still in beta.
This mirrors the release of Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7 and Windows Vista. Windows 7 included new APIs such as the first versions of Direct2D and DirectWrite. These were backported to Windows Vista and shipped as a platform update.
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