Enterprise IT Admin IE11 Upgrade Guide "12"--Compatibility View list Introduction

Enterprise IT Administrator IE11 Upgrade Guide series:

"1"--internet Explorer 11 Enhanced Protected Mode (EPM) Introduction

"2"--internet Explorer 11 support for Adobe Flash

"3"--ie11 new GPO settings

Introduction of "4"--ie Enterprise model

"5"--No Tracking (DNT) exception

"6"--internet Explorer 11 FAQ for IT Pros

Comparison of IE11 functions on "7"--win7 and Win8.1

"8"--win7 IE8 and Win7 IE11 contrast

Comparison of the functions of "9"--ie10 and IE11

"10"--How to prevent the installation of IE11

"11"-Deploying Internet Explorer 11 through SCCM 2012 and WSUS

"12"--Compatibility View list Introduction

Compatibility View List Introduction

Web sites designed for past versions of Internet Explorer are not always expected to be displayed in the current version of Internet Explorer. To address this issue, Internet Explorer 8 implements a Compatibility View feature that allows users to "roll back" to a previous version of the Internet Explorer browser on the same Windows platform, or, more accurately, to use the analog IE7 standard mode.

Compatible views can be used to address a variety of incompatibility issues, such as incompatibilities caused by incorrect browser detection and feature detection. Many Web sites today use browser detection instead of feature and behavior detection for access to clients, making Internet Explorer 11 receive page markup content that is not compatible with IE11 Standard mode and other browsers.

Compatible views make content designed for a previous version of the Web browser to be better rendered in Internet Explorer 11. The list of compatible views automatically displays site content as a compatible view without requiring further user interaction. The list of compatible views was first proposed by Internet Explorer 8 and was enhanced in Internet Explorer 9. Internet Explorer 11 inherits the Compatibility View List feature.

Tool description

The Internet Explorer product department joins a site to the list of compatible views only if:

• Designed to run in a previous version of Internet Explorer
• Not working well in the latest version of Internet Explorer
• Does not declare any x-ua-compatible meta tags or headers

A dedicated URL periodically publishes a Web site that is added to the Internet Explorer 11 compatibility View list, which contains the corresponding compatibility-mode definitions. Internet Explorer periodically checks the URL and downloads its contents to a local file such as the following:

File:\\%localappdata%\microsoft\internet Explorer\iecompatdata\iecompatdata.xml

The user can choose to turn off this feature: Simply remove the check box for "include list of websites updated from Microsoft" in the Compatibility View Settings dialog.

Characteristic switch

Additional, starting with Internet Explorer 9, the Compatibility View also provides feature switches to provide a specific solution for issues caused by "feature detection" and "conditional annotations".

In order for the site to work well in Internet Explorer 11 instead of completely fallback to IE8 standard mode or IE7 mode, the Compatibility View list contains a compatibility definition named "feature switch". This allows specific APIs to operate in the same way they did in previous versions of Internet Explorer, even in the IE11 Standard mode state.

It is expected that future Web site developers will no longer have to write specially crafted code for each browser, and feature switch functions are also removed at this time. Feature switches are reserved for those that have been tested for high-impact changes that might affect a large number of sites.

Not every behavioral change in Internet Explorer will be characterized by a corresponding feature switch. For most compatibility issues, developers should use X-ua-compatible to run the site under the required compatibility view.

Feedback method

Finally, if you need to remove your website from the list of compatible views listed above, please email to [email protected] and include the following information:

• Owner Name
• Corporate Title
• Email Address
• Telephone number
• Company Name
• Street Address
• Website Address

Microsoft will review the above information and remove your site from the list in the next regular update.

Enterprise IT Admin IE11 Upgrade Guide "12"--Compatibility View list Introduction