Internet Explorer
| Component of Microsoft Windows | |
 | |
 | |
| File name/executable | iexplore.exe |
|---|---|
| Included in | Microsoft Plus! Companion for Windows 95 Windows 95 OSR 1-Windows 10 Mac OS 8-Mac OS X Tiger |
| Replaced by | |
| Microsoft Edge | |
Internet Explorer (iexplore.exe) is a web browser designed by Microsoft as its first venture into the web browser market. The initial version of the browser was incarnated from Spyglass Mosaic, which Microsoft licensed for a modest quarterly fee and a share of the non-Windows product revenues. As Microsoft decided to distribute Internet Explorer "free of charge" with their Windows operating system, they were able to avoid most royalties.
Due to the browser's inclusion starting from the Windows 9x series and beyond, it sparked a three-year-long antitrust lawsuit that lasted until November 2001. The browser quickly overtook Netscape in the first browser war and retained ~95% of its market share until the early 2000s, when popular alternative browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome came to market, sparking the second browser war.
Internet Explorer was notorious for disobeying set web standards by the W3C until version 9, when Microsoft took a new commitment to HTML5 and web standards. Microsoft ceased active development of Internet Explorer after Windows 8.1 was released in 2013, making Internet Explorer 11 the final version of Internet Explorer. It was eventually replaced by Microsoft Edge in 2015.
History[edit | edit source]
Internet Explorer began development in 1995, while Windows 95 was still under development. Up to around 1994-95, Microsoft's focus on networking had been primarily focused on local-area-network solutions, and their internet focus had been on proprietary services such as The Microsoft Network (there was precedence for this, given the popularity of AOL and CompuServe). However, with popularity of the world-wide-web growing, several groups at Microsoft began work on web browsers, which were unified into the IE project, set to become part of the Plus Pack for Windows 95.
The initial version of IE was based on licensed code from Spyglass Mosaic, and IE was first bundled by Microsoft with Windows 95 OSR1 and Windows NT 4.0 in version 2.0. After the conclusion of Windows 95's development, Microsoft began making plans to integrate IE into Windows as a core component of the operating system, providing the HTML rendering engine of IE, MSHTML, as a library that other applications could embed. At the time based on Internet Explorer 2.0, early betas of Windows "Nashville" used SHDOCVW (the IE shell document viewer) for an early version of the Windows Desktop Update. After Nashville was cancelled, the Windows 95 codebase, which already has the DOS 7.10 and FAT32 technologies was bifurcated into what would become Windows 98 and what would become Windows 95 OSR2; the Memphis branch adopted the WDM and IE4 technologies, which later were integrated into Windows 95 OSR2.5.
Simultaneously, the Internet Explorer codebase was split, around January 1996, into what would become IE 3.0 and IE 4.0. IE 3.0 contained most of the enhancements slated for IE 4.0 except the Windows Desktop Update, which was a Memphis technology.
The Windows Desktop Update essentially merged IE and Explorer, sharing DLLs such as BROWSEUI.DLL. During Windows Vista's development, they forked off, with IE7 adding IEFRAME.DLL.
During the 1990s, Microsoft produced both Mac OS and UNIX versions of Internet Explorer. While the Mac OS versions were based on a totally separate codebase, the UNIX versions of Internet Explorer and Outlook Express (which was bundled with IE at the time) were actually ports of the Windows versions, using ports of Windows components from Mainsoft's product MainWin, using source code they had licensed from Microsoft. IE for UNIX even supported ActiveX; while there were no ActiveX controls written by third parties for the RISC processors used by the various supported UNIX OSes, Microsoft did support ActiveX scripting through VBScript.
Internet Explorer continued to be supported long after being replaced by Microsoft Edge due to being the only supported option for many corporate intranets. Even after IE was removed from Windows, the underlying components powering it remain since, as a part of Windows, it is a dependency for many applications that require web views, including Microsoft's own help viewers. IE exposes various COM objects and APIs for applications to use.
Since IE was an operating system component, but versions of IE released after an OS's release were optional updates, the version of IE launched with an operating system would continue to be supported as long as that OS was supported. For example, Windows 2000 launched with IE 5.01, and through to the end of Windows 2000's support in 2010, Microsoft continued to support IE 5.01 on Windows 2000, delivering updates for that configuration, though they also supported IE6. IE5.5, being not the original version of IE included with Windows 2000 nor the latest, was only supported until Windows 2000 exited mainstream support in 2005.
Similarly, Microsoft continued to support IE6 on Windows XP even after the release of IE7 and IE8, IE7 on Vista after IE8 and 9, though this policy did start to end over time as Microsoft required one to use the latest supported browser on Windows to continue receiving updates for the browser. This particularly affected IE9, which was released out-of-band from any Windows release, and IE10 which was only included on the short-lived Windows 8.0; IE8 received limited updates through to 2020 on Windows 7.
End of Life[edit | edit source]
On 17 August 2020, Microsoft announced that Microsoft 365 apps will no longer support Internet Explorer starting on 30 November 2020 with the Microsoft Teams Web App, followed by all other 365 apps on 17 August 2021.
Microsoft discontinued Internet Explorer on 15 June 2022.[1] As of Windows 10 build 21387, the browser's functionality has been disabled and attempting to open its executable will instead redirect the user to Microsoft Edge, though it is still possible to run Internet Explorer through various workarounds, such as replacing ieframe.dll with a copy from an older build; by invoking it by bringing up the Internet Options Control Panel applet and clicking on the Programs tab, then clicking Manage add-ons; by clicking on Learn more about toolbars and extensions or using a .vbs file with the following contents:
CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application").Visible=true
Versions[edit | edit source]
| Version | Release date | Included in | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | 24 August 1995[2][3] | Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95 |
|
| 1.5 | 12 February 1996 (Windows 3.1x) 16 February 1996 (NT 3.51) |
— | Intermediate release for Windows 3.1x and Windows NT 3.51 to bridge the gap between IE 1 and 2 |
| 2.0 | 27 November 1995[4] (Windows 95) 23 April 1996 (3.1x, NT 3.51, Mac OS) |
Windows 95 OSR1 Windows NT 4.0 Nashville (alpha) |
|
| 2.1 | 1996 | — | Intermediate release for Windows 3.1x and Windows NT 3.51 to bridge the gap between IE 2 and 3 |
| 3.0 | 13 August 1996 (Windows) 8 January 1997 (Mac OS) |
Windows 95 OSR2 (3.0) Windows 95 OSR2.1 (3.02) |
|
| 4.0 | 22 September 1997 | Windows 95 OSR2.5 (4.0) Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition (4.01, optional) Windows 98 (4.01 SP1) Windows 98 SP1 (4.01 SP2) |
|
| 4.5 | 1999 | — | Released for classic Mac OS |
| 5.0 | 18 March 1999 | Windows 98 SE (5.0) Windows 2000 (5.01) Neptune (5.01 pre-RTM, mixed with 5.5 beta) |
|
| 5.1 | 2000 | — | Last version for classic Mac OS |
| 5.2 | 2001 | Mac OS X Cheetah to Mac OS X Tiger[a] | Only version for Mac OS X |
| 5.5 | 19 June 2000 | Windows Me |
|
| 5.6 | 2000 | — | From Windows XP build 2210 to 2296 |
| 6 | 24 August 2001 | Windows XP Windows Server 2003 |
|
| 7 | 18 October 2006 | Windows Vista Windows Server 2008 |
|
| 8 | 19 March 2009 | Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 R2 |
|
| 9 | 14 March 2011 | — |
|
| 10 | 26 October 2012 | Windows 8 Windows Server 2012 |
|
| 11 | 17 October 2013 | Windows 8.1 Windows Server 2012 R2 Windows 10 Windows Server 2016 Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2022 |
|
Compatibility[edit | edit source]
| Windows for Workgroups 3.1x | Windows NT 3.51 | Windows 95 | Windows 95 OSR1 | Windows NT 4.0 | Windows 95 OSR2 | Windows 95 OSR2.5 | Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition | Windows 98 | Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a | Windows 98 Second Edition | Windows 2000 | Windows Me | Windows XP | Windows XP Service Pack 2 | Windows Server 2003 | Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 | Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 | Windows Vista | Windows 7 | Windows Vista Service Pack 2 | Windows 7 Service Pack 1 | Windows 8 | Windows Server 2012 | Windows Embedded 8 | Windows 8.1 | Windows 10 | Windows 11 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 1 | A | A | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 1.5 | A | A | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 2 | A | A | A | Y | Y | A | A | A | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 2.1 | A | A | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 3 | A | A | A | A | A | Y | N | A | N | A | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 4 | A | A | A | A | A | A | Y | Y | Y | A | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 5 | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 5.5 | N | N | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 6 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | A | A | A | A | A | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 7 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | N | A | A | Y | N | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 8 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | N | N | A | A | Y | A | Y | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 9 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | A | A | N | N | N | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 10 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | N | A | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N |
| Internet Explorer 11 | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | N | A | N | A | A | Y | Y | Y |
Legend:Not available Available Preinstalled
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Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Starting with Mac OS X Panther, Internet Explorer is no longer installed by default in favor of Safari.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Windows Experience Blog. The future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge, 19 May 2021.
- ↑ http://www.earchiv.cz/b05/b0824001.php3
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20051001113951/http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/historyofie.mspx
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120402165114/http://www.intercom.co.cr/www/research/1995/1127.htm