Windows 11 has officially signed the death sentence for Internet Explorer as it will be disabled when users upgrade to the new operating system.
As part of Microsoft's announcement of Windows 11, they also listed the features and applications that would be removed when people upgrade to the new operating system.
In the announcement, Microsoft states that Internet Explorer will be disabled in Windows 11 as Microsoft Edge now includes the IE Mode feature.
"Internet Explorer is disabled. Microsoft Edge is the recommended replacement and includes IE Mode which may be useful in certain scenarios," says Microsoft's list of deprecated applications in Windows 11.
In May, Microsoft announced that Internet Explorer would reach the end of support on June 15th, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10.
"Microsoft Edge has Internet Explorer mode (“IE mode”) built in, so you can access those legacy Internet Explorer-based websites and applications straight from Microsoft Edge. With Microsoft Edge capable of assuming this responsibility and more, the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10."
Windows users who still need Internet Explorer for legacy web applications could use the Microsoft Edge IE Mode feature that opens a website in a legacy rendering engine to work correctly.
Users will know they are in IE Mode as a little Internet Explorer icon will appear in the address bar, as shown below.
Now that Windows 11 is disabling Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge includes IE Mode, it is not clear if Microsoft will accelerate the retirement in Windows 10 as well.
As they will continue to support Windows 10 for the enterprise, they will likely continue supporting Internet Explorer on that OS until Windows 10 reaches the end of life.
However, as Microsoft has removed IE in Windows 11, they have shown that they are done with the archaic browser and have no intentions of supporting it for any longer than they need to.
Comments
Sam Gunn - 2 years ago
What if I don't want Windows 11? Is there away not to upgrade to 11? I'm reading this on IE.
yeseri8634 - 2 years ago
Windows 10 will be supported until Oct. 14, 2025. So you have a couple of years to upgrade.
After 2025 you will probably have to upgrade to 11 or switch to something more user friendly for example Linux Mint or Ubuntu. They don't have Internet Explorer but you'd have to switch anyway - why not try out something new?
NoneRain - 2 years ago
They're not "more user friendly" tho, but still good options for someone not interested in Win11.
Sam Gunn - 2 years ago
Linux Mint in another partition. I also have Windows 10 as a virtual machine there. Even made a few clones of it. I only use it about every few weeks.
NoneRain - 2 years ago
As said, until 2025 you're probably good. But, IE is legacy software... better start testing another browser meanwhile. People ofter found Firefox more suitable when migrating from IE, so, give it a shot, or try the new Edge that's probably already installed on your Windows.
mynameisgod - 2 years ago
And IE is the ONLY way for me to logon to some legacy iDrac server consoles. Well, I can use Java in another browser, but it's a huge pain in the ass.