Many a web developer will be celebrating on Jan. 12, which Microsoft Corp. has announced will be the day it ceases support for all but the most recent version of Internet Explorer.
On that day, any remaining users of Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10 will receive a new “End of Life” patch encouraging them to upgrade their browsers. Those who ignore it will no longer receive regular security updates or tech support, leaving their computers more vulnerable to malware.
For those users who, for whatever reason, wish to disable the end of life patch and continue using their outdated versions of IE, Microsoft has provided a helpful guide for disabling notifications:
For users of x86-based systems:
1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, then click OK.
2. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl
3. Right-click FeatureControl, point to New, and click Key.
4. Enter FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, and then press Enter to name the new key.
5. Right-click FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
6. Enter iexplore.exe, and then press Enter to name the new value.
7. Right-click iexplore.exe, and then click Modify.
8. In the Value data box, enter 1, and then click OK.
9. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the browser to enable the new key.
For users of x64-based systems, it’s a bit trickier:
1. Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then click OK.
2. Locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl
3. Right-click FeatureControl, point to New, and then click Key.
4. Enter FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, and then press Enter to name the new key.
5. Right-click FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
6. Enter iexplore.exe, and then press Enter to name the new value.
7. Right-click iexplore.exe, and then click Modify.
8. In the Value data box, enter 00000001, and then click OK.
9. Locate the following subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl
10. Right-click FeatureControl, point to New, and then click Key.
11. Enter FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, and then press Enter to name the new key.
12. Right-click FEATURE_DISABLE_IE11_SECURITY_EOL_NOTIFICATION, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
13. Enter iexplore.exe, and then press Enter to name the new value.
14. Right-click iexplore.exe, and then click Modify.
15. In the Value data box, enter 00000001, and then click OK.
16. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the browser to enable the new key.
Note that for both systems, if the value of the iexplore.exe registry entry is 0, or if the registry entry doesn’t exist, the notification feature will be enabled by default.
Why might some of our readers want to continue using an outdated version of IE? The only reasons we can think of are:
- You’re a business user whose computer has been locked down by your IT department and IE is the only browser your organization supports.
- For some reason your company has internal proprietary software that is only compatible with an older version of IE.
In both cases, your company’s management and IT departments would need to have a long overdue chat about network security.
In fact, we’ll use this opportunity to (once again) remind readers that you really, really should not be using Internet Explorer, which as of December was used by only 23 per cent of browsers in North America and 15 per cent around the world, according to the Statcounter tool. Try Google Chrome, which according to Statcounter now represents more than half of all Internet page views, or Mozilla Firefox instead.
Even Microsoft doesn’t officially use Internet Explorer anymore, with the company saying version 11 would be its last before releasing Windows 10 – which came with a new browser, Microsoft Edge – last July.
The program had long been the bane of Internet developers, partly because it failed to comply with the W3C standards used by other browsers until version 10.