SOLVED: How To Configure Chromium Edge IE Compatibility Mode

UPDATED: Jan 3 2022

If you are trying to get rid of Internet Explorer inside your organization, you likely will want to use the new Microsoft Edge (aka. Chromium Edge and CrEdge).  The problem is that there are some features inside IE that most companies still can’t live without due to incompatibility.  The solution is to set Edge to run Internet Explorer in the background for just those sites.  This is called compatibility mode and it is not near as hard to setup as some instructions I have read.

1. Download Enterprise Mode Site List Manager directly from Microsoft HERE
2. Install and launch Enterprise Mode Site List Manager
   1. Click the ADD button in the bottom left and add the entries you want
      • My experience has been that usually you need to set IE8 Enterprise which is odd because IE11 should be happy on many of these sites, but just isn’t
        
   2. Click FILE > SAVE TO XML
   3. Put the .XML file on a web server.
      • It will not work from a file share; it must be on a webserver
3. Download the Edge browser GPO template (msedge.admx to configure Microsoft Edge settings)
   1. Surf to microsoft.com/en-us/edge/business/download 
   2. Select your channel, build and platform
   3. Click GET POLICY FILES
      • If that is too much for you, just click click HERE and download the polices we have on file at URTech.ca which came from build 97
        (From May 2020: polices for build 84.)
   4. Unzip or uncab them
4. Copy the files from the ADMX  folder into your domain’s sysvol
   • \\<your domain>\SYSVOL\<your domain>\Policies\PolicyDefinitions
   • You can delete any of the language folders that your company does not use
     1. For instance we only use EN-US and just deleted the rest
5. Launch your Group Policy Management tool and create a new policy (or edit and existing one if you wish)
6. Expand COMPUTER CONFIGURATION > POLICIES > ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES > MICROSOFT EDGE
7. Set CONFIGURE INTERNET EXPLORER INTEGRATION to ENABLED and select INTERNET EXPLORER MODE in the drop down
8. Set CONFIGURE ENTERPRISE MODE SITE LIST to ENABLED and set the path for the .XML file that contains your settings
   1. The path is the on the web server in step 2.3 above (for example https://MyDomain.com/downloads/edge-ie-mode-site-list.xml
      

At this point you can wait a few hours for everything to sync up or you can force GPO updates.  You can then launch Edge and type edge://compat which will bring up the following.

Everytime you make a change to the compatibility list and save it using the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager the VERSION NUMBER will increase.  You can click the FORCE UPDATE button anytime you want to see if there is an update or you can just wait for it to check.  I believe it checks on first use after boot and once per day if it stays running all day / night.

You can confirm that it is working by looking for a blue Internet Explorer “e” icon to the left of the address bar on any sites you specified as IE8 ENTERPRISE MODE.

Note the the blue “e” does not always appear on sites set to IE11 Mode.

Enjoy!