I read about this internally yesterday and then on the blog posts today - IE7 will become part of the core OS when it is released.  What does this mean - simple, unless you load a "blocking tool" similar to the XP SP2 blocking tool, then IE7 will ship down to your PC as a security update.

Why - well IE7 does make the browsing experience much more secure using the including ActiveX Opt-in, the Phishing Filter and Fix My Settings features.

 ttfn

David