Configuring IE mode sites.xml for Edge browser

Question

Greetings, Looking for some assistance with configuring IE mode in Edge. We have a web product that currently only works in internet explorer, and with that going away next year, we’re looking to see how we can get this to run in edge. I can manually open the edge settings and check the box next to "open sites in internet explorer mode" and our program works perfectly, but ideally we want this to be an automatic setting. I configured a sites.xml file and can sometimes get the website to open properly in edge, other times not. Sometimes the site redirects from IE to edge like it's supposed to, sometimes it doesnt. Sometimes parts of the page load while others don't.

I've changed the <compat-mode> and <open-in> tags around, it's close but I haven't been able to fine tune it, despite looking around at various forums. What's weird is, despite there being a blue IE icon in the address bar denoting the page is opening in IE mode, the checkbox for "open sites in internet explorer mode" in the Edge settings is never checked. Seems like our product will only function properly if that box is checked.

Here's what I have currently, essentially it's configured for two URLs that exist on in house servers for our product.

<site-list version="205">
<created-by>
<tool>EnterpriseSitelistManager</tool>
<version>10240</version>
<date-created>20150728.135021</date-created>
</created-by>
<site url="http://dev50500:100/Login.aspx">
<compat-mode>IE5</compat-mode>
<open-in>MSEdge</open-in>
</site>
<site url="http://qat50500app:100/Login.aspx">
<compat-mode>IE5</compat-mode>
<open-in>MSEdge</open-in>
</site>
</site-list>

Answer 1

In my experience it is always some setting that you missed because there are several things that control it. I would start with the compat diagnostics page in Edge to see what it says.

I don't use the Ent Mode Site List Manager myself so if you're using that tool I don't know what it is doing.

Some things that stand out to me.

1. Do not include the scheme or any specific endpoints in your URLs, just the domain. qat50500app. You might need to include the actual DNS name and not just the machine name. We only use DNS here so I cannot say.
2. Your compat mode is IE5 which seems really, really old. I would say you should leave it off and let the site itself specify the IE mode it needs, if any.
3. The open-in should be IE11 if you want to open the site in IE mode. Specifying MSEdge would open in Edge which it should already do by default if that is the browser of choice.
4. Set the allow-redirect attribute in open-in to true so that redirection works properly as well for sites that use it. Otherwise it may open in IE but a redirect (such as from login or from HTTP to HTTPS) won't honor that.

Refer to the formal schema guide for more information.

Answer 2

Appreciate the input. Will give these a try and let you know the results.

Answer 3

This is what I changed it to - look better?

<site-list version="205">
<created-by>
<tool>EnterpriseSitelistManager</tool>
<version>10240</version>
<date-created>20150728.135021</date-created>
</created-by>
<site url="qat50500app">
<open-in allow-redirect="true">IE11</open-in>
</site>
</site-list>

Seems to be working so far, will do some additional testing