New features coming for IE and Edge in Redstone

May 19, 2016 17:16 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has just announced a couple of new features coming for Internet Explorer and Edge browser in the upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update that’s supposed to improve the experience that business customers get with the two apps.

Microsoft replaced Internet Explorer with Edge as the default browser in Windows 10 and although no new features are being added to the old app, the company has no plan to get rid of it for the time being.

But the upcoming Anniversary Update will be used to ease the transition from Internet Explorer to Edge before eventually pulling the plug on it at some point in the future. Internet Explorer is still being used by many organizations worldwide, so making it the right Edge companion right now is essential.

First of all, the Anniversary Update will make it faster and easier to load a website in Internet Explorer when visiting it with Edge. At this point, whenever you access a website that requires Internet Explorer with Edge browser, you are asked to switch apps before continuing. But in the Anniversary Update, this switch will take place automatically, Microsoft reveals.

The change has been implemented based on customer feedback, it says, so the interstitial page will be there only if businesses specifically want it to be. There’ll be a new group policy in Microsoft Edge called “Show message when opening sites in Internet Explorer using Enterprise Mode” for users who still want to see the message.

More improvements for enterprises

Additionally, the Redstone update will also include a new group policy for Internet Explorer that will restrict browser users to websites mentioned in the Enterprise Mode Site List. When the so-called “Send all sites not included in the Enterprise Mode Site List to Microsoft Edge” option is enabled, Edge browser is automatically fired up when a website not included in the list is loaded with IE.

“This feature works with both the v.1 and v.2 XML schemas. If you also have the ‘Send all intranet sites to Internet Explorer 11’ Microsoft Edge group policy enabled at the same time, then all intranet sites will continue to open in IE11,” Microsoft says.

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is scheduled to launch in the summer, most likely in July, with a plethora of improvements, including Edge browser extension support, so it’s very clear that Redmond hopes that at some point everyone would move from IE to Edge.