Microsoft has decided to allow customers to choose when the last bits of Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) will be removed from their devices.

This comes after IE11 was disabled across some Windows 10 platforms when installing a Microsoft Edge update released on February 14.

It also follows previous warnings from June and December 2022 that the legacy web browser would be permanently disabled via a Windows update.

“Organizations will continue to maintain control over determining the timing to remove IE11 visual references from their devices, if they have not already done so, by using the Disable IE policy,” Microsoft said today.

“Over the coming months a small subset of exceptional scenarios where IE11 is still accessible will be redirected to Edge, ensuring users access a supported and more secure Microsoft browser,” the company added.

Microsoft previously planned to remove all IE11 visual references (including icons on the taskbar and the Start Menu) with the May non-security preview release scheduled for May 23.

Since the February 14 Edge update removed IE11, users are being told that “The future of Internet Explorer is in Microsoft Edge. Internet Explorer (IE) has been retired and is no longer supported.”

By Sean Lyndersay, General Manager, Microsoft Edge Enterprise

After 25+ years of helping people use and experience the web, Internet Explorer (IE) is officially retired and out of support as of today, June 15, 2022. To many millions of you, thank you for using Internet Explorer as your gateway to the internet.

As a user, my first experience with IE was version 3, and my view of what was possible on the internet was transformed by the introduction of Dynamic HTML in IE4 and the introduction of AJAX in IE6. When I got the opportunity to join the IE7 team, I leapt on it, and have been a part of the Microsoft browser journey in some form ever since. Internet Explorer’s reputation today is, deservedly, one of a product from an older era—quirky in behavior and lacking the security of a modern browser. But its contributions to the evolution of the web have been remarkable, from helping to make the web truly interactive with DHTML and AJAX to hardware-accelerated graphics to innovations in touch/pen browsing.

Working on the retirement of Internet Explorer has been a constant reminder of its importance; every day we work with customers who have built their businesses on Internet Explorer. To work on a product with such broad impact has been nothing but humbling—our story in many ways is the story of the internet and what it has allowed people and organizations around the world to do.

But the web has evolved and so have browsers. Incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large, so we started fresh. Microsoft Edge is a faster, more secure and modern browser—the best browser for Windows—designed for today’s internet. But we haven’t forgotten that some parts of the web still rely on Internet Explorer’s specific behaviors and features, which is why Microsoft Edge comes with Internet Explorer mode (IE mode). Regardless of the site or standard—old or new—you can access what you need in Microsoft Edge with new modern features to make your time online even better.