IE11 Document mode defaults to IE7. How to reset?

127,276

Solution 1

By default, IE displays webpages in the Intranet zone in compatibility view. To change this:

  • Press Alt to display the IE menu.
  • Choose Tools | Compatibility View settings
  • Remove the checkmark next to Display intranet sites in Compatibility View.
  • Choose Close.

At this point, IE should rely on the webpage itself (or any relevant group policies) to determine the compatibility settings for your Intranet webpages.

Note that certain sites may no longer function correctly after making this change. You can use the same dialog box to add specific sites to enable compatibility view when needed.

Solution 2

If you are a developer, this is what you need to do:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />

Solution 3

Thanks to all the investigations of Lance, I could find a solution to my problem. It possibly had to do with my ISP.

To summarize:

  • Internet sites were displayed in the Intranet zone
  • Because of that the document mode was defaulted to 5 or 7 instead of Edge

I unchecked the "Automatically detect settings" in the Local Area Network Settings (found in "Internet Options" > Connections > LAN Settings.

Now the sites are correctly marked as Internet sites (instead of Intranet sites).

Solution 4

If the problem is happening on a specific computer,then please try the following fix provided you have Internet Explorer 11.

Please open regedit.exe as an Administrator. Navigate to the following path/paths:

  1. For 32 bit machine:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
    
  2. For 64 bit machine:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION & 
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
    

And delete the REG_DWORD value iexplore.exe.

Please close and relaunch the website using Internet Explorer 11, it will default to Edge as Document Mode.

Solution 5

For the website ensure that IIS HTTP response headers setting and add new key X-UA-Compatible pointing to "IE=edge"

Click here for more details

If you have access to the server, the most reliable way of doing this is to do it on the server itself, in IIS. Go in to IIS HTTP Response Headers. Add Name: X-UA-Compatible Value: IE=edge This will override your browser and your code.

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jim
Author by

jim

Updated on March 31, 2020

Comments

  • jim
    jim about 4 years

    My Internet Explorer 11 on my Windows 8.1 Surface tablet defaults to document mode 7, causing a lot of websites to render wrongly.

    When I open the Developer tools, it states that it defaults to document mode 7 because of Intranet-compatibility settings.

    However, I haven't changed these settings manually and I'm browsing Internetpages!

    I tried to reset the Internet Explorer settings without any luck.

    Any ideas?

  • jim
    jim over 9 years
    Hey Lance, the crazy thing is: I have this issue with public websites, such as stackoverflow.com, etc... Although these sites are Internet-sites (as opposed to Intranetsites), the dev tools mark the document mode as default to 7, because of intRAnet settings.
  • jim
    jim over 9 years
    Your solution helps, so I guess I should rephrase my question: how come internet-sites are seen as intranet-sites.
  • Lance Leonard
    Lance Leonard over 9 years
    That doesn't sound like behavior that should happen; you may need to investigate a few things. When it next happens with SO, right-click the page, choose Properties, and then see what zone the page is displayed in. Are you using a proxy? Perhaps that's forcing site to be displayed in the Intranet zone? Also, see if the site is in the list of sites to always view in Compatibility View (using the Compatibility settings dialog from earlier). If so, try removing the site from the list. Do you perhaps have compatibility settings established through group policy?
  • jim
    jim over 9 years
    I checked a few things: SO and other sites open in the Intranet zone. The strange thing is that two tablets (Surface) have this strange behavior. IE11 on my laptop is working properly. All three computers have Windows 8.1, are on the same network, connected through the same wireless. Do you have any more ideas?
  • Lance Leonard
    Lance Leonard over 9 years
    So, I checked with some other sources and the consensus seems to be that if SO is being reported in the Intranet zone, then something's configured oddly. Possibly a .PAC proxy script, possibly the site zone mappings, possibly custom CV settings, possibly something else. (To view the full thread, see twitter.com/_Lance_Leonard/status/541333492399742977) In any event, those seem to be your best bet for next steps.
  • jim
    jim over 9 years
    Hey Lance, thank you very much for all the effort you took. I will investigate it further with the information you and your friends provided. Hopefully I can post the answer (and solution) here.
  • Zack
    Zack almost 8 years
    He can't do that because it is not a site he created, it is public web sites like stackoverflow etc. This isn't even really a programming question.
  • Rafał Swacha
    Rafał Swacha over 7 years
    @Zack: this topic is also the first search result for developers trying to fix problem with their own websites.
  • llioor
    llioor over 7 years
    @RafałSwacha, this is correct, I'm a programmer and I searched for this topic as well. I'm sure it will help other programmers.
  • WiredIn
    WiredIn over 7 years
    This worked for me <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=11" />
  • llioor
    llioor about 7 years
    @WiredIn yes it will work as well. The question was how to change the default "mode 7" and I recommended for the edge version as Microsoft tech team do as well "Because our goal with Microsoft Edge is to give users the best site and app viewing experience possible, we’ve decided to stop support for document modes."
  • Venkataramana Madugula
    Venkataramana Madugula over 6 years
    Fantastic . this helped me a lot.
  • Ed Randall
    Ed Randall over 6 years
    IE=edge is the highest standards mode and functionally equivalent to an 'html5' DOCTYPE. Ref: msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj676915(v=vs.85).aspx
  • andrew
    andrew almost 6 years
    if you're not a developer and you're just trying to get websites to display in your browser properly then please, please stop using IE 11
  • Solaris_9
    Solaris_9 over 5 years
    This is the correct answer and solved the issue. Thanks! Even if <!DOCTYPE html> is used, IE can still render the page in IE5/IE7/etc style if compatible mode turned on.
  • Fetchez la vache
    Fetchez la vache over 4 years
    May I just take this moment to add a "hallelujah"? Ta.
  • TylerH
    TylerH over 4 years
    @llioor A bit late but content="IE=edge" refers to displaying the page in the Edge document mode, not "like Microsoft Edge". It's annoying that they named their new web browser the same as the 'evergreen' level of the document mode display type of their previous browser, because it causes confusion like this. The bottom line is that IE=edge is not the same thing as "display it like MS Edge". It means "display it like IE11".