Tech giant Microsoft must really want the era of XP to be over, as its IE9 browser, packed with exciting features, don’t run on XP.  This latest browser is more focused on other Microsoft iterations, and will “continue to focus on how we do a great job with Windows 7,” says Ryan Gavin, senior director of IE business, according to The Register.

While this leaves an ample fraction of 53% of computers open to Firefox and Chrome, Microsoft has pretty much prepared to battle with features like Jump List and hardware acceleration via Direct X 10. There is no turning back because “a modern web needs a modern operating system,” he added.

Jump List makes the browser invisible and lets websites and apps run outside the browser directly on the windows desktop. DirectX 10 is a set of Windows APIs to increase the speed of browsing and rendering graphics and video.  This is Microsoft tying IE9 to the newest HTML5 to differentiate it from other browsers.

While the new features are welcome, it’s not entirely surprising that XP is being treated as an afterthought with the new IE9 roll out.  Windows 7 has been a major focus for Microsoft, touching every other project at which the company is pushing resources.  Mobile in particular is an important direction for Microsoft, especially browsing and search.

If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a great walk through of the new IE9.