Microsoft is planning to push IE8 to users through the Windows Automatic Update channel. Users may start seeing the updates by the third week of April.

The browser will be pushed out to Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2003 Server and Windows 2008 Server users.

However Microsoft will not automatically install the software and will be prompting users to install the browser.

If you want to completely block IE8 from appearing in automatic updates, you can install a toolkit that will disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 8, this is a official tool from Microsoft.

Once you install the toolkit, you can disable automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 8 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates and the Windows Update and Microsoft Update sites.

Download IE8 Blocker Toolkit [via Download Squad]