Q: Can I run Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8.1?
A: There's no way to directly run Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8.1. Windows 8.1 and Windows RT 8.1 both come with Internet Explorer 11. If you're having problems with a site, try enabling the compatibility mode for the site. This forces a previous version of the Internet Explorer rendering engine to be used, which typically cures most problems. To access the compatibility mode, select Compatibility View settings from the Tools menu.
If you really need an older version of Internet Explorer, there are several possible options:
- Publish Internet Explorer from an earlier version of Windows Server, using application publishing over RDP. For example, Windows Server 2012 has Internet Explorer 10. The end user sees an IE icon that if clicked launches Internet Explorer 10. Although Internet Explorer 10 interacts locally with other windows, the Internet Explorer 10 browser is actually running on a remote server. The down side is that Remote Desktop Services and server infrastructure licensing are required. This is most commonly seen to run older version of web browsers—for example, running Windows Server 2003 to get Internet Explorer 6!
- Use Hyper-V on your local machine; run a virtual machine with an older operating system and use that browser.
- Downgrade to Windows 8, althought this might not be possible in some instances—for example, Surface 2 can only run Windows RT 8.1.
Technologies such as App-V that virtualize an application aren't good solutions, because Internet Explorer is part of the operating system. Virtualizing part of the operating system isn't supported and is very difficult to accomplish.
