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Microsoft just announced an important change in their policy for providing support for web browsers.
Starting in 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer will receive technical support and security updates.
For those of you running Windows 7 or 8, this means IE 11 and for Windows Vista this means IT 9. By 2016, this could mean the next version of IE if it is available.
This can pose some challenges with organizations who have custom or third party applications that only work with older browsers. For example, we have clients who have applications that break or have not been properly tested to work beyond IE 9.
What happens if customers don’t move to the latest browser by the end of support on January 12, 2016?
Customers have until January 12, 2016, to upgrade their browser after which time the previous versions of Internet Explorer will reach end of support. End of support means there will be no more security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates.
For those using SharePoint, the current browser support for SharePoint 2013 and Office 2013 is the last TWO releases, e.g. both Internet Explorer 11 and Internet Explorer 10.
Office 365 is designed to work with the current or immediately previous version of Internet Explorer. We recommend that you upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer after it is released. Office 365 might continue to work with versions of Internet Explorer other than the current and immediately previous versions for some time after the release of a new version of Internet Explorer, but Office 365 can’t provide any guarantees.
It’s not clear how these two policies will be resolved and whether SharePoint will continue to support the past two browser releases in the future.
