How to Enable IE 8 Compatibility View for your whole Web site or for specific Web site directories

With the release of  Internet Explorer 9, many Customer sites suddenly had rendering Errors and Problems displaying the site correctly.

In order to avoid Expensive and time consuming corrections Internet Explorer 9 has a new functionality called Compatibility View which enables the Browser to Emulate IE8.

Web Developers and site Administrators can configure IIS and their Sites to tell IE 9 to Automatically Emulate IE 8 when they visit their sites  or Just specific Web Pages.

This is done Automatically by adding a custom HTTP Header to IIS and the Website web.config or to add a Meta Tag to Specific Pages.

The HTTP Header is interpreted by IE which will activate the Compatibility View and all other browsers will simply ignore this HTTP Header.

Here is Steps to do in IIS 7.5

1. Start s IIS Manager to do this, click Start, Click on Run ,type inetmgr, and then click OK.

2.Under Connections ,double-click the Server that you want, and then double-click Site.

3.Click the Web site,Where you want to add the custom HTTP Response Header.

4.Under  Website Name double-click on HTTP Response Headers in IIS Section.

5.Under Actions Actions ,Click Add.

6.In the Name box ,type X-UA-Compatible.

7.In the Value box, type IE=EmulateIE8.

8.Click OK.


How Add the custom HTTP response header in the Web.config file

To add this header to the Web.config file, create or revise the Web.config file as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <configuration>
     <system.webServer>
           <httpProtocol> 
               <customHeaders> 
                    <clear /> 
                    <add name="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=EmulateIE8" /> 
               </customHeaders> 
           </httpProtocol> 
     </system.webServer> 
  </configuration>

Note Add this new or revised Web.config file to each Web directory in which you want to use compatibility mode.

Resources:
 

Why are some webpages blank or incorrectly displayed in Internet Explorer?

Internet Explorer 9 Compatibility View

How to Enable IE 9 Compatibility View for your whole Web site or for specific Web site directories

Some websites may not behave as expected in Internet Explorer 9.This kind of problem does not occur in earlier versions of IE.

For example, you may experience any of the following symptoms in IE 9 :

• ·         Text  are in wrong positions ,
• ·         Some website features does not work,
• ·         You receive script error messages on some website

To enable Compatibility include the following custom HTTP header for all requests to your site or directory.

X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE8

To do this in Internet Information Services (IIS) on a Windows server-based Web server, you must either add a custom HTTP response header in IIS or configure the Web.config file for the appropriate directory.

Add the custom HTTP response header in IIS

To add a custom HTTP response header at the website level,at the virtual directory level in IIS, follow the steps for the version of IIS that you are using.

IIS 7 on a Windows Server 2008-based Web server

1. Start IIS Manager. To do this, click Start, click Run, type inetmgr, and then click OK.
2. Under Connections, double-click the server that you want, and then double-click Sites.
3. Click the website, the folder, or the virtual directory where you want to add the custom HTTP response header.
4. Under <website name> Home, double-click HTTP Response Headers in the IIS section.
   
   Note The <website name> placeholder refers to the name of the website.
5. Under Actions, click Add.
6. In the Name box, type X-UA-Compatible.
7. In the Value box, type IE=EmulateIE8.
8. Click OK.

 

 

 

Reference: Internet Explore 8 & 9 development