Microsoft has officially killed off Internet Explorer, but there are a few tricks you can use to revive it on Windows 11.
Internet Explorer was once, for a few years at least, the world’s favorite web browser. However, along came Firefox and then Google Chrome which toppled IE from its perch. Internet Explorer struggled to compete with those browsers, and Microsoft eventually removed IE from Windows 11 and stopped supporting it altogether in 2022.
So, it’s safe to say Internet Explorer is now a dead duck. However, you can still browse the web with Internet Explorer in Windows 11, and here's how.
The Internet Properties window includes settings with which users once tweaked IE through. There you can press a button that brings up a Manage Add-ons window for Internet Explorer.
Here's the trick, however; a link for a Microsoft page within the Manage Add-ons window opens Internet Explorer within Windows 11. As such, here is how you can reach that Internet Explorer link in Windows 11:
A "manage add-ons in Internet Explorer 11" page will open within the IE browser. That page includes a notice that tells users Microsoft has stopped supporting IE. Click the New tab button to view Explorer’s New tab page. Then you can get browsing in Internet Explorer by entering website addresses in the URL bar.
The toolbars and extensions link in Manage add-ons can be considered an unclosed loop-hole for opening IE in Windows 11, which Microsoft might one day remove. However, you can always open Internet Explorer by setting up a VBS file that launches that browser.
You can set up such a file in Notepad like this:
When you double-click this Internet Explorer.vbs file, it will open the browser.
Now you can add a shortcut for your new VBS file to the desktop. Right-click the Internet Explorer.vbs to select Show more options > Send to. Select Desktop to send it there. Then you’ll be able to open IE by double-clicking the Internet Explorer.vbs shortcut on the desktop.
To make that shortcut more identifiable, add an Internet Explorer icon. Right-click the Internet Explorer shortcut to select Properties. Select the Change Icon option. Input the path C:Program FilesInternet Exploreriexplore.exe in the Look for files box. Then select the Internet Explorer icon, click OK, and select Apply.
Or you can find many alternative Internet Explorer icons on the IconArchive website. Typing Internet Explorer into the search box on Icon Archive will find a lot of matching icons. Select an IE icon from the search results and click an ICO button to download.
You can add a downloaded icon to your VBS desktop shortcut much the same. Click Browse on the Change icon window. Select the ICO file in the folder it downloaded to, and click the Change Icon window’s Open button. Pressing OK > Apply will add the custom icon to the Internet Explorer shortcut.
IE Tab is a Google Chrome and Edge extension that emulates Internet Explorer within the browser. This extension enables users to utilize the benefits of Internet Explorer without needing to actually open the browser.
It’s a useful extension for viewing old webpages with antiquated Java and Silverlight applets, some of which are so old that only Internet Explorer can display them correctly. This is how you can emulate Internet Explorer in Edge and Chrome with IE Tab:
To access options for the extension, click the Change Auto URLs button on IE Tab's address bar. Pressing that button will bring up the IE Tab Options tab from which you can select different compatibility modes ranging from IE 7 to IE 11 standards. As Internet Explorer 11 is the most recent version of the browser, it’s probably best to select the IE 11 Standards Mode option.
This extension also has an Auto URL feature that enables users to set specific pages to automatically open in IE Tab. To set pages to automatically open in IE mode, select the Enable Auto URLs checkbox in the extension’s settings tab; input a full URL (including HTTPS) for a webpage to automatically open in IE Tab within the Auto URL box, and click the Add option. Also, make sure the added URLs include a forward slash (/) at the end of them.
So, that’s how you can rediscover Microsoft’s archaic web browser in Windows 11. Internet Explorer may be outdated, but there are still good reasons to utilize it in Windows 11. For instance, Internet Explorer has better backward compatibility with old websites than the likes of Chrome. As it’s one of the few browsers that still supports ActiveX, IE also works better with SharePoint.
Jack has been a freelance tech journalist for more than a decade. He has covered Windows Vista, 7, 10, and 11 topics within a multitude of guides for MakeUseOf and numerous other websites.
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