Can I get Internet Explorer 7 without using Windows Automatic Update? And should I?

Taking your questions in reverse order:

Let me expand on each of those.

IE7 is an update to IE6.

That means that if IE6 is on your machine then installing IE7 will simply
replace it. There’s no easy way to have both on at the same time, as it’s simply
not designed for it.

So you’re welcome to try, but you’ll most likely end up with only IE7.

Now, I keep saying “there’s no easy way”, because of course there is a
hard way.

I won’t go into much detail here since it really is well beyond the needs
of most typical computer users, but one approach is to use Virtual Machine
technology such as that offered by Parallels or VMWare. You could run several
separate instances of Windows XP in different VM’s and each instance could have
a different version of IE installed.

It’s non-trivial and it’s a bit of work, but it’s possible.

•

Automatic Update is not Evil

I know that there are many people who disagree strongly with that position,
and I’m not going to convince them otherwise.

However, all my machines have Windows Automatic Updates turned on, and
unless you really know what you’re doing, I strongly recommend the same.
Windows Automatic Updates enabled helps keep you protected, well,
automatically.

So what about the ‘stealth’ update that everyone’s so concerned about?

My position is simple:

• The actual stealth update was benign in intent. (It was a simple update to
  the updater itself.) Yes, unfortunately the update did have a bug. This can
  happen to any update, stealth or not.

• The problem with stealth update was more about disclosure than technology.
  The disclosure, or rather the lack of disclosure or documentation, was bungled
  by Microsoft.

• There are many more ways other than automatic updates that Microsoft or any
  software vendor could be using to put unexpected things on your machine. If you
  really don’t trust Microsoft or any software vendor to that degree you
  probably shouldn’t be using their software.

• For the vast majority of people the risk of not running Automatic Updates in
  my opinion far outweighs any perceived risks of running it. It’s
  simply too easy to miss a critical update or miss taking it in a timely
  fashion.

So, as you can gather, I’d have you use Windows Automatic Update and take
IE7 that way.

But what if you still don’t want to?

•

Getting IE7 Manually

There are two approaches to getting IE7 without using Automatic Updates.

The Windows Update Website: If
you visit the Windows Update site, you’ll be informed of many updates that are
available for your computer. Bungled “stealth” updates aside, Windows
Automatic Updates only includes “Critical” updates. The Windows Update
site includes additional updates as well, and more importantly, let’s
you pick and choose which you want to have installed. So, pick IE7.

Download IE7 yourself: Internet Explorer
has its own page on the Microsoft web site, and from there you can download and
install IE7 directly. In additional, that page includes links to Microsoft’s
comparisons of IE6 and IE7 and their take on why it’s worth upgrading.