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Addressing Application Compatibility When Migrating to Internet Explorer 8

Applies To: Windows 7

Around the world, Windows® 7 is blazing a trail to widespread adoption by organizations of every type and size. The value factors driving this adoption include the many new enterprise features and abilities offered by the new operating system. Windows 7 is also accounting for a sea change in the way IT departments are approaching their long-term platform needs to support a modern desktop. With new features and benefits, the Windows 7 operating system lowers the total cost of ownership by helping users stay productive anywhere, enhances security and control, and simplifies desktop management across the organization. Windows 7 also ships with a standards based modern browser, Windows Internet Explorer® 8, which provides improved security and enhanced browsing capabilities. Combined, these two platforms increase IT efficiency and enhance an organization’s agility and security.

However, migrating to a new operating system poses certain unique challenges, primarily with the need to support legacy web applications. Organizations may have applications that were built for previous versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, such as Windows Internet Explorer 7 or Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6. These web applications may encounter compatibility issues with Internet Explorer 8. Additionally Internet Explorer 6 does not natively run on Windows 7 and the option of simultaneously running two versions of Internet Explorer on Windows is not supported by Microsoft. More information on this topic can be found in the Knowledge Base article Running Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer on Single Operating System is Unsupported on the Microsoft support website.

Many corporations are still relying on Internet Explorer 6 based web applications that have been built and customized over the past decade. Organizations planning to deploy Windows 7 need to have a comprehensive strategy and an execution plan in place to migrate legacy web applications to Internet Explorer 8. This document provides IT professionals a detailed overview of Internet Explorer 8 compatibility issues and discusses remediation strategies for migrating web applications, while providing an introduction to tools and processes.

To learn more about understanding and addressing Internet Explorer 8 application compatibility from a developer perspective, read Addressing Application Compatibility When Migrating to Internet Explorer 8 in the MSDN library.

For the latest information, see Windows Internet Explorer 8.