Microsoft releases the first version of Windows 10 without Internet Explorer

Microsoft released the first version of Windows 10 without the Internet Explorer web browser in the Windows Insiders of the development channel. In the past year, Microsoft has made several moves to abandon IE support, such as announcing that Microsoft 365 online services will end support for IE.

Last Wednesday, Microsoft officially announced that Internet Explorer 11 will be permanently retired from the Windows 10 version and will be replaced by Chromium-based Microsoft Edge in June 2022. After that, Microsoft released the first Windows 10 version without Internet Explorer web browser in the Windows Insiders of the development channel. Microsoft notes:

This retirement does not affect in-market Windows 10 LTSC or Server Internet Explorer 11 desktop applications. It also does not affect the MSHTML (Trident) engine. For a full list of what is in scope for this announcement, and for other technical questions, please see our FAQ.

However, Microsoft Edge has built-in Internet Explorer mode and will support IE mode to run at least until 2029. Users can enter edge://settings/defaultbrowser, turn on “Allow websites to reload in Internet Explorer”, and then restart the browser to enable this mode to access traditional Internet Explorer-based websites and applications.