Microsoft has released a new preview release and preview SDK for their MSXML parser environment.

The new release seems to be treated as a new version (3.0). It includes more (though not yet complete) support for the W3C XSLT and XPath Recommendations, in addition to bug fixes and a number of new features.

Because it uses a different set of files and IDs, it can be used on systems still running older versions of the MSXML parser. Like its predecessors, it requires at least Internet Explorer 4.0 SP1 and a 32-bit Windows environment.

A new set of tools for viewing and validating XML documents and XSLT results is also available with this new parser release.

Not everyone is enthusiastic about the new release, however. Elliotte Rusty Harold, keeper of the Cafe Con Leche XML site, found that:

"Microsoft has added some decidedly non-standard features such as nested templates so that style sheets written for IE5 may well break when used with other, fully-standard compliant XSLT processors.... Microsoft has a cultural aversion to standards, and this is just one more example. "