What Developers should know about Windows 7 without Internet Explorer
As you've probably read before, in Europe Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer. This edition will be called "Windows 7 E" and Internet Explorer will not be included for legal reasons. Users will be able to install IE themselves, but it will not be installed by default. For the same reason, users in Europe won't be able to perform an in-place update from Windows Vista to Windows 7. Instead they need to do a clean install, essentially removing IE from their system.
This means that your application may run on a Windows system without any default web browser. This could cause problems if you try to open a web page from your application or from your setup program.
Note that the underlying "internet web platform component" is present even on Windows 7 E, so things like HTML help and embedded WebBrowser controls will work, but opening a web browser window will not.
The Windows Team has published some developer FAQs around Windows 7 E in their blog:
Windows 7 E Best Practices for ISVs