.NET Framework and IE Support Terms Altered

A change to Microsoft’s support life cycle for the Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser and the .NET Framework means that the company will end support for all but the most recent version of each on Windows. This change is expected to help Microsoft minimize the test surfaces that must be supported for Windows and could help future releases of Windows arrive more frequently and more rapidly. The new policy will require organizations to move to IE 11 and the .NET Framework 4.5.2 in most cases, and both will likely require some applications to be tested or updated in order to work.

Windows to Require Latest Browser Version for Support

IE is an integral and key component of the Windows OS and is generally released on the same schedule as new releases of Windows, with any IE release supporting previous versions of Windows arriving slightly later.

IE releases matter to enterprises because many in-house Web applications have been written to support a particular version of IE and, therefore, application and browser compatibility can affect when an organization can deploy a new version of IE or a version of the Windows OS that ships with a new version of IE. Many organizations stayed with IE6 and Windows XP because their in-house line-of-business Web applications only worked with IE6, and changes introduced with IE8 caused incompatibility. As Windows XP approached support retirement, Microsoft’s efforts increasingly focused on getting users to move to newer versions of Windows with updated browsers, such as IE9, IE10, and IE11. With the arrival of Enterprise Mode IE in IE11, which emulates IE8 behaviors for sites that require it, organizations may now have more time to move their applications forward while still migrating to more modern versions of IE.