Microsoft announced in two places (here and here) this week that there will be a new version 7 of Internet Explorer in beta form in about 6 months. Web developers may be hopeful that IE7 will fix some of the fundamental CSS rendering bugs that have plagued the web for several years now with no fix in sight.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Microsoft is being very clear that this update is solely focused around XP SP2 security. It is targeted only to XP SP2. This is really just going to be a dot release of IE 6.

Microsoft® Internet Explorer for Windows XP Service Pack 2 ... designed to add new levels of security to Windows XP SP2

we’re focused on XP SP2 ... [Win 2000 support is unlikely due to] engineering and logistical complexity

Microsoft has made public statements in the past that the current IE code base is unmaintainable to the point that they cannot fix the CSS bugs. (At least that was their excuse as to why the bugs had not been fixed in several years.)

It really seems as though it will require a brand-new rendering engine to fix the CSS bugs. That's not IE 7.