Force “Internet Explorer 8” browser mode in intranet

71
votes

There are "Internet Explorer 8", "Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility Mode", and IE7 mode in IE8.

However, the default setting in IE make all intranet website use "IE8 Compatibility Mode" even I have setted doctype, the meta tag, http header as suggested to force it into IE8 mode.

I have

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

and

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" >

But it still goes into "IE8 Compatibility Mode", without any changes in IE setting.

How to force it into pure "IE8" mode, without change any browser's setting?

PS. I am not talking "document mode" here.

13
htmlinternet-explorer-8ie8-compatibility-modex-ua-compatibleie8-browser-mode
Despite what some of the answers say, there is an easy fix for this as pointed out by Codex73: In Tools -> Compatibility Settings, uncheck the box which says "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View". – nedned
That may work for some, but that's not the programmatic answer that Dennis was looking for – Peder Rice
How are you detecting which mode it is in? – Jonathan
Here is a very relevant new blog article from MSFT - blogs.msdn.com/b/cjacks/archive/2012/02/29/… – program247365

13 Answers

45
votes

Seem that MSFT has not consider a large intranet environment that we have many different web application running inside.

There is no way to bypass the IE8 setting, according to somewhere I read on MSDN forum.

So, I will have to beg my system administrators to put some new group policies to change "Compatibility View" setting and the value and prevent user change the value, until MSFT discover this bug and fix it.

From an MSDN blog post (emphasis theirs): "Browser Mode is chosen before IE requests web content. This means that sites cannot choose a Browser Mode."

35
votes

It is possible to override the compatibility mode in intranet. Just add the below code to the web.config. Worked for me with IE9.

<system.webServer>
<httpProtocol>
  <customHeaders>
    <clear />
    <add name="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=edge" />
  </customHeaders>
</httpProtocol>

11
votes

You'll have to make some adjustments to IE.

Here they are.....

In Internet Options / Local Intranet / Sites

Under : Local Intranet inside Sites, uncheck "Automatically detect intranet network".

Then select only "Include all network paths (UNCs)

See attached screenshots

Screenshot

6
votes

I found the answers here hard to follow, so here's the important information in a nutshell:

If your intranet uses default settings for IE, IE7 Standards Mode is enforced for intranet sites regardless of any website settings.

From this:

Compatibility View and the Enterprise

A large number of line-of-business websites are Internet Explorer 7 capable today. In order to preserve compatibility, Internet Explorer 8 ships with smart defaults based on zone evaluation. In the default state, all sites on the public internet display in Internet Explorer 8 Standards mode (Compatibility View off) and all intranet websites display in Internet Explorer 7 Standards mode (Compatibility View on).

Let’s look at some examples. If you navigate to sites on your local intranet like http://myPortal and http://sharepoint/sites/mySite, Internet Explorer 8 identifies itself with a User Agent string of ‘7’, Version Vector of ‘7’, and displays webpages that trigger standards mode in Internet Explorer 7 Standards mode. This combination allows webpages that worked correctly in Internet Explorer 7 to continue to do so in IE8.

4
votes

To override the Compatibility View settings for intranet or all websites you need to make IE8 emulate itself.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" >
3
votes

Set a custom HTTP header instead of using the <meta... in the <head> section. These are supposed to be equivalent, but I have seen that an X-UA-Compatible HTTP header from the server will override IE 8's "Display intranet sites in Compatibility View" setting, where the <meta... element would not.

2
votes

If you are using .NET, I have the answer for you:

HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" >

Web.Config:

<system.webServer>
    <httpProtocol>
      <customHeaders>
        <clear />
        <add name="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=8" />
      </customHeaders>
    </httpProtocol>
1
votes

Read somewhere that the DOCTYPE declaration must be the very first line. No comments of any kind, nor empty lines.

In combination with setting the HTTP Response Headers, this worked for me. Browser Mode went from "IE9 Compatibility Mode" to just "IE9 Mode".

0
votes

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\BrowserEmulation IntranetCompatibilityMode 1-->0

0
votes

In order for the META declaration to work, the doctype has to be the simplified version: 

<!DOCTYPE html>

Not the longer statement in Dennis' question.

0
votes

This combo did the trick for me:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<HEAD>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" >
</HEAD>

at least IE developer tools reports IE9 Compat View, IE8 standards

just for kicks i tried EmulateIE7 and that worked as well. simplifying the extended !DOCTYPE was key.

0
votes

You need remove port number from your domain site name site:1180/index/

If browser see port number in url - hi "think", that's is intranet.

setup your dns server for friendly urls - site.com/index and it work OK

0
votes

The answer marked as "correct" is technically correct but suggests that there is no solution to the real issue being faced by most people that is: "how do I properly show on IE8, with compatibility mode enabled, a web application which does not support compatibility mode?". 

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<HEAD>
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="Edge" >
</HEAD>

this worked for me on several workstations.

If the above code is implemented on application side, IE8 appears to behave as if it was not in compatibility mode, even though it will still show browser mode as compatibility mode.