Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 (IE7 RC1) which is almost the final finished IE7 product to be officially launched. IE7 RC1 features a lot of features enhancements especially in improved performance, stability, security and application compatibility. RC1 also features improved CSS standard compliant and new language options. Beside, Internet Explorer 7 RC1 will also install automatically with auto-uninstall feature (i.e automatically uninstall previous beta version of IE7) without the need to manually uninstall any previous version of Internet Explorer. But yet again, IE7 RC1 is protected with Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation check.

However, there is crack or patch available which enable Windows users to install Internet Explorer 7 RC1 version 7.0.5700.6 English for Windows XP SP2 with no WGA validation check, contributed by swissboy. Instruction to bypass WGA validation check to install IE7 Release Candidiate 1 as follow (updated version by swissboy to incorporate 2 updates i.e. ‘Microsoft National Language Support Downlevel APIs’ and ‘Microsoft Internationalized Domain Names Mitigation APIs’ (which will automatically install normaliz.dll)):

  1. Download the patched, fixed and cracked IE7 RC1 setup installer IE7RC1-WindowsXP-x86-ENU-noWGA.zip (inside contains IE7RC1-WindowsXP-x86-ENU-noWGA.exe).
  2. Go to Control Panel -> Add/Remove Program, uninstall and remove Windows Internet Explorer 7 (if you unable to see the option, click on Show Updates on the top).
  3. Extract the downloaded file to a folder.
  4. Run IE7 RC1 setup installer IE7RC1-WindowsXP-x86-ENU-noWGA.exe from the zip file. At the end of the successful IE7 RC1 installation process, you will be asked to restart Windows, DO NOT RESTART Windows now! Click on the box ‘Do not restart now’ and then select the ‘Finish’ button.
  5. Run the update XmlLiteSetup.exe (Hotfix for Windows XP KB915865) to install or actualize the file xmllite.dll, otherwise there may be problems with menubars such as some items are missing or incomplete.
  6. Run the update NlsDl.exe (Microsoft National Language Support Downlevel APIs).
  7. Run the update IdnDl.exe (Microsoft Internationalized Domain Names Mitigation APIs). This update will also install the normaliz.dll which is absolutely needed for Windows system restart, thus eliminating the need to manually copy the normaliz.dll as per previous instruction.
  8. Restart the Windows.
  9. Run and start IE7 RC1.

Alternatively, if you prefer to crack IE7 installation WGA check yourself, use the following method:

  1. Download IE7 RC1 from Microsoft. Find out ways to bypass windows validation if you fail the genuine Windows validation test with message “This copy of Windows is not genuine.”.
  2. Extract the IE7 RC1 installer setup file to a folder. (Use extraction tools such as WinRAR)
  3. Download the crack for IE7 RC1 WGA validation when install, which consists of patched ieustom.dll and normaliz.dll.
  4. Extract the IE7 RC1 crack to a folder.
  5. Copy the patched iecustom.dll to the Update folder of the extracted IE7 setup. Overwrite any existing file.
  6. Run update.exe (Do not run iesetup.exe).
  7. Restart the PC when installation complete.
  8. Run xmllitesetup.exe in the extracted IE7 folder.
  9. Copy the normaliz.dll from the crack to \Windows\System32 folder.
  10. IE7 RC1 installation done and you will be able to run IE7.

Note: The above steps have incorporated the fix to missing normaliz.dll. The method is IE7 application specific workaround. Better way is to use the trick to make Windows genuine to Microsoft.

Update 1: IE7 Final RTM Release

Update 2: Internet Explorer for free download without validation.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purpose only. Readers should contacts Microsoft if their licensed or OEM software cannot be validated or purchase genuine software.