The new year is just over a month away, and with the coming of 2016 there will be an important change with Internet Explorer that many companies should take note of. As of January 12th, 2016, all older version of Internet Explorer should be upgraded to Internet Explorer 11.
Past this date, older version of IE will no longer receive security updates and technical support. To help companies be aware of this change, Microsoft has posted a detailed guide for the upgrade process and to explain how IE 11 was built with a comprehensive Enterprise Mode to support older web apps and other proprietary technologies. The guide also explains how IE11 works with the Enterprise Mode of Microsoft’s latest browser, Microsoft Edge, to help ease the upgrade process to Windows 10.
The site details how with IE11 you can use Enterprise Mode Site List Manager for IE8 Enterprise Mode to specify any web path to load to this mode, use IE7 Enterprise Mode for higher fidelity emulation, and emulate the IE5, IE7, IE8, IE9, and IE10 rendering engines. Internet Explorer 11 also includes Enterprise Site Discovery for IE8, IE9, IE10, and IE11 to discover the web apps employees are using and to learn more about how the individual apps are built.
The Microsoft Edge team also announced two new feature in IE11’s Enterprise Mode. IE11 can now supports HTTP Ports. This allows you to specify HTTP ports in Enterprise Mode Site List XML and add HTTP ports from the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager tool. Microsoft is also introducing a new Web Application Compatibility Lab Kit. The kit is designed to help enterprise customers learn how to use Enterprise Mode and Enterprise Site Discover by providing a number of walk-throughs for configuring number of tools. The list of walk throughs includes “how to configure and set up Enterprise Mode in addition to Enterprise Site Discovery, the F12 developer tools, and the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager.”
Today’s blog post by the Microsoft Edge team also highlights how IE11 and Microsoft Edge work best on Windows 10. This helps assure enterprise customers that IE11 and all of its Enterprise Mode features are supported as of the recent Windows 10 Fall update.
Microsoft Edge was built as a brand new browser “from the ground up to improve productivity, to be more secure, and to correctly, quickly, and reliably render web pages,” but it also allows business to access older website through its own Enterprise Mode that opens IE11. With Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge, enterprise customers will get the performance and security of Microsoft’s latest browser first, and the flexibility of IE11’s comprehensive Enterprise Mode when they need access to older proprietary technologies they rely on.
As we recently reported, as many as 49% of business are planning to upgrade to Windows 10 in 2016. These tools to add support for legacy web apps and proprietary web technologies helps ensure companies have the flexibility they need while still getting the newest features and security that come with Microsoft’s latest operating system.
If you want to learn more about today’s announcement, including more technical information on the Enterprise Mode XML schemas for IE11 and improved diagnostics with about:compat, you can head over to the Microsoft Edge Dev Blog here. And you can download IE11 here.
