Intranets and Legacy Browsers

As the Product Manager for Intranet Connections, I always have to balance the need for modern, responsive user interfaces versus legacy browser support. Many of our customers in the finance and healthcare sectors can not upgrade their users from Internet Explorer 7 / 8 due to legacy web applications. Our efforts to constantly improve our product are hampered by having to support legacy browsers. It would be great if everyone could move to more modern browsers.

There are two options to migrate to a more modern browser while maintaining support for  legacy web applications:

1. Upgrade IE 8 to IE 11 and Manage Compatibility Mode
2. Leave IE 8 installed, and install Chrome

Both of these options however have issues that have to be addressed.

Upgrade to IE 11

Microsoft does not allow more than one version of Intranet Explorer to be installed on the same computer. If you want to upgrade all users to IE 11, the older sites that require IE 7/8 may work in compatibility mode, but would have to be tested. Apparently trouble in JavaScript rendering is the most common issue that causes older sites not to work in compatibility mode.

In addition, you’ll want to enforce that all users use the same compatibility settings, instead of the users having to manage that themselves. To do so you’d have to use a Group Policy setting for Internet Explorer to “push” the list of sites and what compatibility mode setting should be used for all users.

Running "gpedit.msc" from Windows Start menu's "Search program and files..." will open the Group Policy Editor. In the Windows Settings > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Compatibility View folder, you can explicitly set what sites must be view in Intranet Explorer 7, and prevent users from changing their compatibility view settings.

Note that by default, it appears Microsoft renders all internal sites in compatibility mode. Here's instructions how to turn that off for your internal sites.

If your legacy web sites won't work in compatibility mode, then upgrading IE 7/8 is not an option. A second alternative is to install Chrome along side IE.

Install Chrome in Addition to IE 7/8

A second alternative is to leave the computer’s installed with IE 7/8, but also install Chrome, and make Chrome the default browser.

Two issues with this solution however:

1. Users would have to remember which browser to launch for each application
2. Links from one application displayed in Chrome (like the intranet) would not open the legacy application in IE

There is a work around for these 2 issues, called Legacy Browser Support. You can also read about it this ZDNet article.

What it does is allow the network administrator to define via a Group Policy which site/URLs are supposed to be opened in which browser. Then, when a Chrome browser with the Legacy Browser Support plug-in installed encounters a site on the defined list, it automatically launches and displays the link in IE 8 instead of Chrome.

I got this to work on my local computer, but it was a little tricky:

1. Download and extract the ADM/ADMX files from Google.
2. Copy the LegacyBrowserSupport.admx file into C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions
3. Copy the en-us\LegacyBroswerSupport.adml file into C:\Windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-us
4. Open Group Policy Editor and navigate to Administrative Templates > Google > Legacy Browser Support.
5. Add a site to open in IE under "Hosts to Open In the Alternative Browser". I just put in "cnn.com" as the value. By default, it opens in IE, but apparently there is some specialized syntax where you can specify any installed browser.
6. Install the Legacy Browser Support Plug-In for Chrome

To get it to work the other way (open link in Chrome, launched by IE) you have to install an Intranet Explorer plug-in.

In truth, there is a third option, having a virtual of Windows XP with IE 8 installed hosted in Windows 7/8, but for the average user, that is probably too complex.

I hope this helps any organization struggling to support web applications with different browser version requirements.