Don’t wait for June 15th! Set your own IE retirement date.

With roughly six weeks left until the Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application retires on June 15, 2022, you and your organization may have entered your final stages of preparation. You've identified any IE-dependent sites used by your organization; you've compiled those sites into an enterprise mode site list for IE mode; you've designated any needed neutral sites and tested those sites to ensure IE mode works as expected.

Now you just have to wait until IE is disabled after June 15…. Right?

That is one approach, but we know that waiting for something to happen can be stressful, especially with complex IT environments. So instead of waiting, we recommend that you schedule your own internal retirement date—the best way to prepare for IE disablement after June 15, is to proactively retire IE in your organizations before June 15.

Your date, your way.

Here's how.

Step 1: Make sure IE mode is set up!

Have you set up and tested IE mode with the sites you've identified as IE-dependent? If not, that is a prerequisite. IE mode in Microsoft Edge is how your organization and users will need to access IE-dependent sites moving forward. We recommend testing as thoroughly as you can with pilot groups of users—including deploying the Disable IE policy to those users—prior to your broader internal retirement/disablement activities. This is the best time to address any compatibility issues you may encounter.

If you do encounter compatibility issues after setting up IE mode, please connect with the App Assure team for remediation assistance. You can submit a request for assistance through their website or reach out via email (ACHELP@microsoft.com).

Step 2: Schedule your internal IE retirement date

Once you feel confident that you've tested IE mode on a smaller scale, it's time to think about a broader rollout. Set a date to deploy the Disable IE policy; this will be your internal IE retirement date. We recommend that this be a few weeks prior to June 15 to provide time to resolve any issues.

Step 3: Inform your users and have them import their data

Once you've set your internal retirement date, it's time to inform your users of the upcoming change. To help you with change management, we have a collection of IE retirement end user adoption resources available for you to use, including an email series focused on transitioning end users.

To provide the best experience for users, we recommend that users import their data from IE to Microsoft Edge before your organization's internal IE retirement date. To easily import their data, users can copy and paste edge://settings/importData into the Microsoft Edge address bar, then choose “Microsoft Internet Explorer” from the selections under “Import from”. These steps are also included in the IE retirement end user adoption resources email series.

Tip: Educating users on how to open the Microsoft Edge app by identifying its icon is crucial for smooth change management, especially for users accustomed to finding and opening IE11 via its icon from the taskbar or Start menu. Using the email series in the IE retirement end user adoption resources is a great way to educate your users on how to identify and find Microsoft Edge.

Step 4: Broadly deploy the Disable IE policy on your internal retirement date

Congratulations - the day has arrived! Remind users that this change is happening and be ready to answer questions they may have. The best part about IE mode in Microsoft Edge is that they should just be able to work as usual, simply using Microsoft Edge instead of IE11.

That's it! It has been quite a journey this past year and we appreciate all the work you have put in to make sure your organization is ready for when IE retires on June 15, 2022. The future of Internet Explorer is in Microsoft Edge, and with Microsoft Edge, your organization gets a dual engine advantage, capable of running your IE-dependent sites, while offering a faster, more secure, and modern experience for everything else.

Consolidated resources for IE retirement

Phase 1: Getting started/site discovery

• On-demand webinar
• Website + Getting Started Guide
• IE Retirement Technical FAQ
• Learn about Cloud Site List Management
• Configure IE mode guided experience

Phase 2: Testing

• Use IE Driver to automate IE mode testing
• Avoid common issues using the Troubleshooting Guide

Phase 3: Disable IE and change management

• Stress test your environment by disabling IE using group policy
• Review and use the adoption kit

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