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Microsoft IT

Microsoft Will End Support For Most Versions of Internet Explorer on June 15 (zdnet.com) 90

It's finally happening. Microsoft will be ending support for most versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) 11 browser on June 15. ZDNet: Microsoft announced more than a year ago that IE would be removed from most versions of Windows 10 this year and has spent months encouraging customers to get ready by proactively retiring the browser from their organizations. IE 11 will be retired for Windows 10 client SKUs (version 20H2 and later) and Windows 10 IoT (version 20H2 and later). Products not affected by this retirement include IE Mode in Edge; IE 11 desktop on Windows 8.1, Windows 7 (with Extended Security Updates), Windows Server LTSC (all versions), Windows Server 2022, Windows 10 client LTSC (all versions), Windows 10 IoT LTSC (all versions). The IE 11 desktop app is not available on Windows 11, as Edge is the default browser for Windows 11. IE Mode in Microsoft Edge will be supported through at least 2029 to give web developers eight years to modernize legacy apps and eventually remove the need for IE mode, officials have said. According to Net Applications, a web monitoring tool, Internet Explorer still has a market share of 5.21% on desktops and laptops, far behind Chrome at over 69%, to be sure, but still ahead of Apple's Safari, which commands 3.73% market share.
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Microsoft Will End Support For Most Versions of Internet Explorer on June 15

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  • About time I think (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zuckie13 ( 1334005 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @03:08PM (#62616300)

    Considering the original edge was released in 2015, it probably past time to do this. Its the usual problem - lots of folks don't do the work to handle it being replaced until you actually start to pull the rug. Instead of delaying the inevitable, better to pull the rug sooner.

    • Just the ACK for the FP that says it better than I could. But my Subject was little better. Or maybe worse.

      (Or maybe this is really dancing on the grave of AC's absence? I would prefer to dance on Edge's grave, but I'm reading We Are Anonymous right now. Still no insight into the craziness... So I hope someone here will give away the ending? It is a fat book with small printing...)

    • You'd think so, but the government agency we work with is still using a Siebel-based system that requires IE, a decade after I warned them that sooner or later the plug would be pulled. Now we've had to transition to running the site under Edge in IE mode, which took a helluva lot of work to actually function, and there are still some things that feel a little off.

      My biggest fear at the moment is that the government will ride this one through until 2029, but rather than updating the version of Siebel their

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        their using

        Their using? What about MY using? That's what I want to know!

        Still bothers me that so many detail-oriented people (programmers) can't spell, or don't just know the difference between "their" and "they're". Or any other pair of homonyms.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          I heard your parents were a pair of homonyms.

        • Go back to cognitive therapy

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by geekmux ( 1040042 )

          It still bothers me that normal average everyday people, expect programmers to know the finite details of grammar when it's clearly not their fucking job.

          You act as if code even follows speaking rules.

          Grab a grammar professional. I'm willing to bet money they make you look like the average moron within three pronouns. Settle down there, Francis.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            Wow hit a nerve? I don’t think it’s too much to ask that an adult knows basic grammar rules. Maybe you’re too busy lighting the world on fire with your l33t coding to worry about pesky elementary school grammar.
            • Wow hit a nerve? I don’t think it’s too much to ask that an adult knows basic grammar rules. Maybe you’re too busy lighting the world on fire with your l33t coding to worry about pesky elementary school grammar.

              Nerve? Hardly. There is a reason they still call them Grammar Nazis. And no one appreciates it. Not even the English language which has been hijacked by Woke bullshit. It's rather ironic that I used pronouns as the fallacy example, since there are now dozens of them that aren't even remotely recognizable by any dictionary outside of an "urban" one.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            It still bothers me that normal average everyday people, expect programmers to know the finite details of grammar when it's clearly not their fucking job.

            That comma should not be there.

          • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday June 14, 2022 @06:24AM (#62617530)

            know the finite details of grammar

            No, we just expect our programmers to have passed 4th grade English. Communication is the fundamental foundation of problem solving, so it literally IS their fucking job.

            The Indian programmer factories aren't staffed with people who get this wrong. Maybe this complete lack of basic intelligence is the reason why idiots get outsourced.

            • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

              The Indian programmer factories aren't staffed with people who get this wrong.

              Yes, they are. I get your point, but there is no need to use extreme examples that aren't true! Your statement is too comprehensive. There are some people in those "factories" that get it wrong.

              Is that pedantic enough for you? :)

            • know the finite details of grammar

              No, we just expect our programmers to have passed 4th grade English. Communication is the fundamental foundation of problem solving, so it literally IS their fucking job.

              And when I can clearly understand exactly what you're saying above, even if you randomly chose "their", "there", or "they're", perhaps it IS your fucking job to understand that humans are gonna human, and your "communication" excuse, is reduced to Grammar Nazi bullshit.

              Even speling werds wrongg, hardly incapacitates the reader. You still understand it, and therefore you still communicate.

              The Indian programmer factories aren't staffed with people who get this wrong.

              This must be why so many American companies still have their call centers outsourced to India. Because of their perfect

          • It still bothers me that normal average everyday people, expect programmers to know the finite details of grammar when it's clearly not their fucking job.

            You mad bro?

            It doesn't have anything to do with their jerb. It has everything to do with being and educated and thinking individual that has the ability to parse words and meanings. A person who can communicate and move up in the world.

            Are you are accepting of using the wrong terms in programming as you are taking a fit that someone in the real world would like clear and concise communication?

            Dr Olsoc says lay off the coffee a bit.

        • ... they're, there, their. Now isn't that much better?
        • Still bothers me that so many detail-oriented people (programmers) can't spell, or don't just know the difference between "their" and "they're". Or any other pair of homonyms.

          The English language is complex and it's not everyone's first language so I can forgive this one. On the other hand "I could care less" is phrase that instantly shows a complete lack of intelligence. A phrase used by people who don't actually read the words they post. Even ESL people recognise that this means the literal opposite of what the person is trying to say.

        • You realize that not all people on this site are native speakers right?
          For enough people English is their second or even third language.
        • their using

          Their using? What about MY using? That's what I want to know!

          Still bothers me that so many detail-oriented people (programmers) can't spell, or don't just know the difference between "their" and "they're". Or any other pair of homonyms.

          Oh, don't worry about it, they are just a bunch of loosers anyhow.

    • by vux984 ( 928602 )

      There's a TON of software that uses internet explorer as a 'viewer' component for html (not even necessarily remote html, but as a viewer for reports, or internal help, or all kinds of stuff. I worked on an app 20 years ago that as one of its fringe requirements need to generated a simple order form that users could email or print out. It needed lines, and boxes, and a logo and some text, etc. The email was already done up a simple html template, so rather than do the screen and paper version using the wind

      • Oddly enough, you sound almost exactly like the fearmongers in 1999 talking about the TON of shit that relies on two-digit years too.

        And given the available alternatives, we should probably give this concern about as much attention.

        • by vux984 ( 928602 )

          That 20 year old app i mentioned is still in daily use around the continent.

          And as recently as a few weeks ago I bumped into another incident...

          Here Filemaker did make the change to Edge (Chromium) about a year ago now, (but there are still TONS of deployments of earlier versions out there) and it broke stuff all over the place... here's just one example of the breakage:

          https://www.seedcode.com/filem... [seedcode.com]

          • That 20 year old app i mentioned is still in daily use around the continent.

            Yeah, and fax machines are still in use. What exactly is your point here? That programmers are too lazy to actually code for progression, or that Greed is too greedy to care?

            Don't worry. The amount of exceptions that Greed is demanding, will ensure we're still bitching about zombie IE for another 20 years.

            • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

              Ever consider that it could be a great app that hadn't any need for update for 20 years and the programmer has passed on?

            • That 20 year old app i mentioned is still in daily use around the continent.

              Yeah, and fax machines are still in use. What exactly is your point here? That programmers are too lazy to actually code for progression, or that Greed is too greedy to care?

              Don't worry. The amount of exceptions that Greed is demanding, will ensure we're still bitching about zombie IE for another 20 years.

              It's a difference in how different levels of management think.

              A lot of companies wrapped their company operations around Internet Exploder back in the day. And their intranet operations functioned pretty well. And they still do.

              So it becomes a hard sell to go into a meeting and say -

              "Our entire company day to day operational software must be replaced"

              " Has it stopped working?"

              "No, it's functioning perfectly"

              "Why does it need replaced then?"

              "Because it requires Internet Explorer 6 to run"

              "So

        • Oddly enough, you sound almost exactly like the fearmongers in 1999 talking about the TON of shit that relies on two-digit years too.
          And given the available alternatives, we should probably give this concern about as much attention.

          So what you're saying is that we should do in-depth compliance reports to determine what will break when IE goes away, then we should spend billions of dollars preparing for it? Because we spent about $100B in the us alone, $9B of that just in government, preparing for Y2K. I myself wrote a compliance report covering Y2K compliance for every single piece of critical software in use by my employer at the time. Somewhere around 20% of it had to be upgraded. We were lucky though, we only had one piece of equip

          • Oddly enough, you sound almost exactly like the fearmongers in 1999 talking about the TON of shit that relies on two-digit years too. And given the available alternatives, we should probably give this concern about as much attention.

            So what you're saying is that we should do in-depth compliance reports to determine what will break when IE goes away, then we should spend billions of dollars preparing for it?

            No actually what reality is saying is if you ignore the shit out of a problem long enough, it will become a Y2K event eventually.

            And even Y2K turned out to be a sales pitch, so take it all with a grain of salt. Especially when Greed is the one selling salt shakers.

            • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

              And even Y2K turned out to be a sales pitch, so take it all with a grain of salt. Especially when Greed is the one selling salt shakers.

              So are you saying Y2K was a hoax, as in there was never any concern? Or that developers deliberately banded together to make a 'time-bomb' sort of bug so that way they could sell new hardware?

      • And devices with web interfaces that don't work with newer browsers. My Aruba S2500 switch could only be configured with IE8 running inside an XP virtual machine. Thankfully HP issued a firmware update.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          There are reports that some Japanese local government sites still need Internet Explorer. They were mostly forced to upgrade a while back when Microsoft started uninstalling IE from Windows 10 via an update.

      • Isnâ(TM)t the MSHTML control going to be supported until at least 2029? It suggests that IE11 the application will be removed but the components it uses wonâ(TM)t be.

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @05:07PM (#62616700)

      The hell do you mean "about time"?

      "Products not affected by this retirement include IE Mode in Edge; IE 11 desktop on Windows 8.1, Windows 7 (with Extended Security Updates), Windows Server LTSC (all versions), Windows Server 2022, Windows 10 client LTSC (all versions), Windows 10 IoT LTSC (all versions)

      It's about time that retirement announcements, include an actual fucking retirement. You're literally reading the IE zombie clause.

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Now you'd need to consider those relatively old but still working networked devices that are designed specifically for IE are going to get harder to manage. This could mean that you'd need a Windows 7 installation just for that.

    • by Askmum ( 1038780 )
      There are business applications that still need IE11 and don't run properly on Edge without using IE11 compatibility mode. It is beyond me that that still exists.
  • And no, I don't mean a dupe story on Slashdot. I mean I thought MS had killed Explorer a LONG time ago. More lives than the witch's cat? Ding dong, the witch is dead. PLEASE!

    "Fly my pretties!"

    Today's flying monkeys are called Edge, and I wish they would fly over it. I do NOT use that browser and I hope it never becomes my browser of ultimate and final resort.

    (Just going for funny, but I don't mind if I preempt a brain fart or three.)

  • So, they're going to disable it, and if you have an app that uses the IE DLL it's going to get more and more vulnerable over time. Unless you reinstall IE11.'

    How do you know if you have an app that uses the IE DLL? You don't.

    Except in the rarest of cases.

    Abandonware brushfires incoming.

    "If a customer has turned off the Internet Explorer feature but has third-party software that uses Internet Explorer runtime DLLs, how can the Internet Explorer runtime DLLs be updated?
    If customers need an update to the Inte

    • So, they're going to disable it, and if you have an app that uses the IE DLL it's going to get more and more vulnerable over time. Unless you reinstall IE11.'

      This contains assumptions unsupported by evidence. The Internet Explorer engine will continue to receive security updates until at least 2029. Also, the IE desktop app will remain supported on LTSC Workstation and server OS for the lifecycle of those OS.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ... IE Mode in Microsoft Edge will be supported through at least 2029 to give web developers eight years to modernize legacy apps ...

    That's the part that irks me the most... this notion that some apps were built with reliance upon IE, and that somebody, somewhere actually thought that was an acceptable practice. If your website requires the IE rendering engine in order for some meaningful feature of the site to actually function, then you're developing for the internet wrong. Fixing that issue isn't called "modernizing legacy apps"; it's called fixing crap code that was bad right from the start.

    And yes... you could insert any other web

    • Microsoft themselves encouraged or even mandated that developers do this ... ....It's Microsoft's fault that so many still have to use it, worse it's the embedded engine in many many apps .... expect a lot of apps to break

  • by Archtech ( 159117 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @04:33PM (#62616602)

    During the Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998-9, United States v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001), lawyers for Microsoft seriously contended that Internet Explorer was an organic, integral part of the Windows operating system, without which it could not work properly.

    I am glad that in the intervening 23 years, the geniuses at Microsoft have managed to perform the necessary intricate surgery to separate the conjoined software systems while saving the life of at least one of them.

    • I am glad that in the intervening 23 years, the geniuses at Microsoft have managed to perform the necessary intricate surgery to separate the conjoined software systems while saving the life of at least one of them.

      I would rather that both patients had died on the operating table a long time ago, or barring that, any old time.

    • They haven't. Edge's rendering engine is used all throughout Windows 10/11 even if you don't use Edge.

      They didn't surgically remove it, just upgraded it for a newer turd.

      • They just split the rendering-engine and the part we can actually see.
        You can remove the visible browser (with some effort), you can't remove the rendering-engine.
  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Monday June 13, 2022 @04:33PM (#62616606)

    Is Microsoft going to implement Sharepoint folder access in Edge?

    One can use Internet Explorer like File Explorer on Sharepoint sites, where you can deal with lots of files in Sharepoint all at once (in drag and drop fashion if you like). This is the only thing IE is used for in our organization. I would love to kill IE, but Sharepoint.

    • You're right. Sharepoint needs to die, too.

      It's the only way to be sure.

    • Wait what? Which old Sharepoint are you still using? Modern Sharepoint is built on top of Onedrive, the two are intertwined. Go into any Sharepoint folder with Edge, or Teams, or whatever and you're presented with a nice "Sync" button. Pressing that will sync the folder structure into the Onedrive directory and allow you to access files directly through Explorer, even keep the folder structure offline and work on it without an internet connection.

      It also works far better than the hackjob that was File-Explo

  • Such a relief to know that once that happens, all Windows users will immediately stop using Internet Explorer and switch to a currently supported browser. Won't they???
  • Any user who had to endure the "quirks" of IE will happily dance on its tomb.

    But what will clueless corporate IT drones now mandate? What is the most annoying, buggy browser around now that IE is no more?

  • And I can't watch homestar runner anymore, I don't need IE

  • ... to do the same thing. It's not like web evolved into wonderfully featured, fast and reliable native quality apps. How is WebAssembly fundamentally better than flash or Java?

    • > How is WebAssembly fundamentally better than flash or Java?

      WeAssembly has significantly better security and starts up faster because it's part of the browser, not a separate Windows program. It's also open. You aren't reliant on one company's implementation, but rather can have competing implementations.

      Additionally, for historical reasons the right choice on certain things in Java was to make some choices to get things released immediately, knowing that the language wouldn't be as good in the

      • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

        WebAssembly was not designed under the same constraints.

        WebAssembly started out not as a bytecode, but more like a simplified binary representation for asm.js [troubles.md]. I'll grant you it's a bit less of a shitshow compared to Flash or Java, but don't pretend the technical debt of JS isn't making things awkward. As with every webshitshow (cough, webrtc) produced by W3C, PNaCL lost out to it for political reasons like "It's made by google, and we don't like google". It had nothing to do with technical merit.

        • The fact that there was no conceivable way that a standard could ever possibly be written for PNaCL and LLVM isn't "we don't like Google".

          "Go read the code for Chromium, then the code for llvm" isn't a workable standard.

          Even the creator of llvm said that using that as the IL was a bad idea - it wasn't designed for such use.

          • by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

            PNacl of course had a standards track. [chrome.com] The issue was not lack of such, but due to it being geared towards JIT/compiler crowd, while being alien to the web crowd whose familarity with the topic ends with js. And thus webassembly ended up looking the way it does - using asm.js as an IR is very poorly suited for static translation, and even worse for JIT.

            Even the creator of llvm said that using that as the IL was a bad idea - it wasn't designed for such use.

            That's why PNacl is only a subset of llvm modified fo

    • Modern replacements do 100x more. There's a reason modern browsers use a lot of memory, and that's because they have more in common with operating systems than browsers of old.

      You may just use your browser to read static words rendered in HTML, but other people use them for video conferencing, building applications, running complete office suites, hell you want to get meta (the original word, not the shit company) then fire up Windows 95 in your browser: https://win95.ajf.me/ [win95.ajf.me]

  • Please M$, nuke Outlook from orbit, fire the team, refuse to license it. Make it die. It's the worse email and the worse calendaring software out there. It's unusable, confusing, wrong, and a pain to use. Please kill Outlook!

  • Nutscrape has a chance to come back now that competition is out of the picture! The browsers wars and court hearings all to drop the software a few years later.
  • I always feel bad for MS when they discontinue yet another piece of crap that I never used.

  • What to do if you have devices that use IE controls? Keep a win 7 VM around?

  • The OP is both very misleading (because of MSFT) and simultaneously true. But lots of active instances of IE will continue to exist on Win10/11.

    MSFT has created a very confusing, misleading situation here that I had the unfortunate necessity to untangle so now I'm going to share here. Info below is all per MSFT.

    On Win11 IE has never been enabled. On Win10 it'll be disabled tomorrow. In both cases it's only the standalone browser that is disabled.

    But "IE" is the name MSFT gives to the standalone

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