Internet Explorer Automation Dead?

RIP IE

The writing appears to be on the wall for Internet Explorer, and by extension Internet Explorer automation.

Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15, 2022Microsoft - Windows Blog
Microsoft Edge with IE mode is officially replacing the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application on Windows 10. As a result, the Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will go out of support and be retired on June 15, 2022Microsoft - Tech Community

So if you have application utilizing Internet Explorer automation, start planning now!

The real question here is what does “retired’ mean exactly?  Will the app remain, but receive no more updates or are they going to be forcibly removing it as part of some future update as they have done with other ‘features’ in the past?

Alternatives

As it stands right now, Edge does not offer the possibility for any form of VBA automation.  Therefore, presently there does not seem to be any migration path defined by Microsoft leaving developers in the lurch!

One potential workaround may be to use Selenium.

Implications For The Access WebBrowser Control

The other thing to note is that this shouldn’t impact the Access web browser control.  The Microsoft Access Dev Team finally released an official page regarding the implications of this on the Access Web Browser control that you can read by clicking on the following link:

IE 11 Retirement: What Does This Mean for Microsoft Access Apps?
Greetings Access Community, I had a great question from Klaus Oberdalhoff in the Denver User Group last month, as well as numerous questions from the community on IE11 and its impending retirement. I wanted post this to help clear the air on these concerns. Here is a quick set of Q&A we have put to…

but in short, the WebBrowser Control is based on MSHTML and will be supported until 2029. So we are good on that front for some time to come.

One response on “Internet Explorer Automation Dead?”

  1. zewde

    I use open source (autoit-v3-setup and OpenTwebstSetup_1.4) for VBA automation.
    For VBA automation to work, you have to configure Edge.
    Open Edge browser
    Open Setting , Click Default Browser.
    On the left side see header – Internet Explorer compatibility.
    From Let Internet Explorer open sites in Microsoft Edge – Select Incompatible Site Only (Recommended).
    From Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode – Select Allow