Enable and Use Internet Explorer 11’s Enterprise Mode

 

Enable Enterprise Mode with Group Policy

If you need Enterprise Mode, there’s a good chance you’re using a Professional or Enterprise version of Windows and will have access to the group policy editor. You can’t enable Enterprise Mode on standard versions of Windows 8.1 or Home versions of Windows 7.

To launch the local group policy editor, press Windows Key + R, type gpedit.msc into the Run dialog, and press Enter.

Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer.

Scroll down and locate the Let users turn on and use Enterprise Mode from the Tools menu option. Double-click it, set it to Enabled, and users will be able to enable Enterprise Mode manually.

System administrators can also enable the Use the Enterprise Mode IE website list option. You’ll need to create a list of websites you want rendered in Enterprise Mode and save it to a file — either on the local computer or on a website — and enter the address of that file here. Internet Explorer will load the list, read it, and render all the websites on it in Enterprise Mode.

Some reports indicate that there are various registry entries that you can modify to enable this feature on Home or standard versions of Windows. However, it appears these options have been removed on the final version of Windows 8.1 Update 1. When we monitored the Group Policy Editor to see what registry entry it was changing, it was changing a Group Policy-only entry and not a standard registry entry you could change by hand.

Update: Microsoft’s Fred Pullen has informed us that there are still registry keys you can change to enable this feature on standard versions of Windows 8:

“The registry keys should still work, but may have changed from the pilot.  The ones that work are {HKLM|HKCU}\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode and consist of the strings “Enable” and “SiteList”.  Note that it’s in the “Policies” branch, and that some of the keys (“Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode”) may need to be created.  I’ve tested this in Windows 7 VMs, and the regkeys work for me on non-domain-joined machines.”

Activate Enterprise Mode

With Enterprise Mode enabled, using it is as simple as tapping the Alt key in Internet Explorer, clicking the Tools menu, and selecting Enterprise Mode to toggle Enterprise Mode for the current website. If you’ve set up a list of websites that will be automatically opened in Enterprise Mode, you don’t even need to do this — it will all happen automatically.

If you just enabled the group policy setting, you’ll have to close and re-open Internet Explorer before this option will appear in the Tools menu.

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It’s no surprise that this feature requires a Professional or Enterprise version of Windows. It’s named Enterprise Mode and intended for businesses with out-of-date websites, not typical home users.