Enable IE Mode in Chromium Edge

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How to enable IE Mode in Microsoft Edge Chromium

As you may remember, Microsoft has removed the IE Mode feature from Microsoft Edge. THe company has limited it to enterprise customers and IT admins. They have also stated that the feature was released to the public for testing purposes only. Here is a bit of good news - you can re-enable IE Mode when needed with recent versions of Edge!

The IE Mode feature made its first appearance in Edge build 77.0.200.0. It was opening a new tab that was simply redirecting its URL to the Internet Explorer browser. Starting in Dev build 77.0.211.1, the ability to open web sites in Internet Explorer mode was finally working properly in a new tab inside the Edge browser.

The proper IE Mode could be activated by setting the 'Enable IE Integration' flag to IE Mode. When enabled, it allows opening a web site in a new tab which will use Internet Explorer as the rendering engine. The flag enables a new menu entry,  menu > More tools > Show this page using Internet Explorer.

The procedure is explained in details here:

Microsoft Edge Chromium Receives Full Featured IE Mode

Only a few weeks later, the “Show this page using Internet Explorer” option has disappeared, even if you still have the flag enabled.

Finally, the team behind the browser has listened to users and has added a new command line option that allows activating IE Mode and the appropriate option in the menu. This means you can create a shortcut to launch Microsoft Edge Chromium with IE Mode enabled.

To Enable IE Mode in Chromium Edge,

  1. Update Edge Chromium Dev to the latest available version (see the list below).
  2. Type edge://flags/#edge-internet-explorer-integration into the address bar of Edge.
  3. Enable the flag Enable IE Integration by selecting IE Mode from the drop down list next to the flag's name.
  4. Restart the Edge browser when prompted.
  5. Right-click on Edge Can/Dev icon on the desktop and select Properties from the context menu.
  6. Modify the Target text box value by adding the --ie-mode-test option after msedge.exe.
  7. Now, launch Edge Chromium using the modified shortcut. You'll find the menu > More tools > Open sites in Internet Explorer mode option

Note that now the browser shows an info bar with the following text for the IE Mode tab.

All sites in this tab will be opened in Internet Explorer mode

See the screenshot above.

The new Microsoft Edge browser installs updates automatically. Also, you can manually check for updates by visiting the menu Help > About Microsoft Edge. Finally, you can grab the Edge installer from the following page:

Download Microsoft Edge Preview

At the moment of this writing, the latest Microsoft Edge Chromium versions are as follows.

I have covered many Edge tricks and features in the following post:

Hands-on with the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge

Also, see the following updates.

Thanks to Sean Lyndersay.

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Author: Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

9 thoughts on “Enable IE Mode in Chromium Edge”

  1. This is very helpful. It’s rather shocking that some sites still only work in IE, not Firefox or Vivaldi but that’s been my experience. I have a feeling they would also work in Chrome but I’m not going to use that for anything more important than YouTube videos about Jay Leno’s Garage.

    It’s nice that you publicized this small act of kindness from the Microsoft mandarins. I wonder if this would work in Linux if I hit the same snag.

    Reply

  2. Странно. У меня это меню до сих пор в Других инструментах, а не в кнопках в адресной строке, и открывается не в Еже, а запускается отдельно IE (Win8.1, Еж последняя канарейка).

    Reply

  4. But for this to work it this still relies on Internet Explorer being kept installed right? Which kinda defeats the object where a company wants to get rid of IE from their packaged installations/images.

    Reply

  5. I seem to be having issues here, as the flag is long removed, and despite me installing the Enterprise version and the management policies, and configuring the management policies, the IE mode settings remain greyed out.

    Currently my only recourse is to run the “–ie-mode-test” command line, which is not a desirable situation.

    Reply

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