And that exemption is scheduled to last until at least 2029.

It exempted the IE platform – IE11's Trident/MSHTML browser engine, Web Object Control (WebOC), and Component Object Model (COM) automation – in order to permit the continuance of IE mode, a way to render websites that depend on the legacy browser using the IE platform. Microsoft hinted as much in February when it began pushing a patch to disable IE 11 via a Microsoft Edge update. 'Certain versions of Windows 10' is not all versions of Windows 10 and some organizations still haven't let go of a browser that reached peak popularity in 2003 and then tailed off. If any site you visit needs Internet Explorer 11, you can reload it with Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft Edge was built to bring you the best of the web, with more control and more privacy as you browse. Alas, who could have foreseen that Microsoft's browser prophecy – 'the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge' – would remain forward-looking two years on. Instead, we recommend you switch to Microsoft Edge. That really ought to have been the end of it.

Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) as a desktop application on Windows 10 back on June 15, 2022, and permanently disabled its legacy browser on certain versions of Windows 10 on February 14.

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