Another aspect that is often overlooked is Microsoft's decision to closely couple IE with Windows. On Windows, the installed IE version was used within third-pa

Another aspect that is often overlooked is Microsoft's decision to closely couple IE with Windows. On Windows, the installed IE version was used within third-party applications as part of the standard application SDKs provided by Microsoft. For example, any QuickBooks user can tell you stories about IE security settings affecting their accounting software in a negative fashion. This made it difficult for Microsoft to iterate IE, because so many applications relied on proprietary aspects of IE's rendering engine.