My quick research resulted that there was supposed to be IE-11 Mode Support in MS Edge via some special flag turned on, but I couldn't find it on both normal Edge and Edge Dev on Windows 11
Downloaded Internet Explorer 11 installer from MS Download Center and installed, but upon trying to launch iexplore.exe just MS Edge opens
Yes, I completely understand that this is Dev release of Windows 11 and of course I installed it on my personal non-vital PC just to try it out. But I don't feel very comfortable that I can't log in on web interface on some CCTV server that I have to log on sometimes and to check everythings is fine, working and all cams runnning. And it uses IE 11 ActiveX module plugin to get running. So will I have to run a virtual machine with Win 7/10 for Internet Explorer to do that routine?
35 Answers
I was able to get IE11 mode and ActiveX working on Windows 11 preview build 22000.51 using a test page. I am not affiliated with the publisher of the page or aware of its security, use at your own discretion. If you have your own page then use that.
For reference, this is what the page looks like before anything is enabled:
- In Edge, go to the 3 dot menu in the upper right corner and go to Settings. Search for "mode". Switch the toggle on for Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode and then you will need to restart Edge:
- When you are on the page you wish to load in IE11 mode: open the 3 dot menu, go to More tools, and select Reload in Internet Explorer mode:
To enable ActiveX, this is what I did:
- Open the the Start menu and start typing "Internet Options" to search and open the control panel.
- Go to the Security tab, select Trusted sites, and click the Sites button
- Add your site here and Close:
- I set the security level for Trusted sites to Low. If you do not wish to do so, you can play around with the ActiveX options in Custom level, but I was not able to get it working after switching a few settings there:
- I refreshed the page and it prompted me to allow the ActiveX plugin and the page loaded successfully:
Searching for "mode" left me with 0 results. The page @MC10 mentioned is available at edge://settings/defaultBrowser or by clicking on the "Default Browser" tab in the Settings menu.
Unfortunately, it seems a clean install of Windows 11 doesn't have IE mode settings previously mentioned (as per screenshot) - I'm also running Windows 11 21H2 - Build 22000.51.
To access non-updated legacy software that still requires IE, it's recommended to use emulation software, such as IE Tab for Chromium-based browsers [Edge | Chrome].
IE hasn't been a secure browser to use since 2017 due to a file association that creates an unfixable exploit, with Microsoft stopping development of it in the same year:
- [Mashable] Internet Explorer exploit lets hackers steal your data even if you never use it
- [Microsoft Security Chief] The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser
- [ZDNet] Microsoft security chief: IE is not a browser, so stop using it as your default
- [engadget] Microsoft begs you to stop using Internet Explorer
Microsoft inadvertently broke some IE functionality in Windows 11 but restored it with build 22000.348. If you are running that build or higher, the following VBScript code will launch IE:
Set oIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
oIE.Visible = True
oIE.Navigate "" 'put your home page hereIn Edge, you can configure any web site to load in IE Mode and set the IE compatibility level. In Edge, just navigate to edge://compat/SiteListManager and add a site that you want to force into IE mode (the site can also be a local HTM file).
You can also specify the IE compatibility mode in your own web pages. For example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=10">
</head>
<script language="VBScript">
Sub Greet MsgBox "Hello"
End Sub
</script>
<input type=button value='Click for greeting' onclick=Greet()>
</html>You might want to try Avant Browser, which is based on IE and worked for me on IE-only pages on Windows 11.
