# The Skinny on IE's Update Policy

DevFeed: [The Skinny on IE's Update Policy](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-skinny-on-ie-s-update-policy-21675.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://paulirish.com/2012/the-skinny-on-ies-update-policy/>)

Author: Paul Irish

Published: 2012-06-29T17:47:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Paul Irish](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/paul-irish.md>)

Topics: [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/browsers.md>), [Microsoft](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/microsoft.md>), [Web](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web.md>), [Windows](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/windows.md>), [HTML5](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/html5.md>)

Tags: [australia](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/australia.md>), [brazil](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/brazil.md>), [browsers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/browsers.md>), [china](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/china.md>), [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [microsoft](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/microsoft.md>), [update](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/update.md>), [upgrades](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/upgrades.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>), [windows](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/windows.md>)

## AI overview

The article explains Microsoft's Internet Explorer autoupdate policy and its implications for web developers. Important updates are installed automatically by default, moving users on older Windows versions from IE6-IE8 toward newer IE releases, while allowing users and enterprises to opt out. The policy aims to reduce the number of users on obsolete browsers, though enterprise intranet compatibility and remaining regional holdouts continue to limit its impact.

## Source excerpt

Every month, WebKit, Firefox and Opera are shipping incredible features; IE10 is also going to settle up and even out those HTML5 Test scores (plus some features they may debut, like Grid Layout!). But while these features are becoming available in some browsers, most of us can't use them because we have a sizable audience who have been left behind on old browsers. A while ago I made a big fuss about IE's lack of solid upgrade path and how it meant we'd end up with 10 major versions of IE in the wild. But luckily, things took a turn for the better when Microsoft announced a new autoupdate policy for IE. I wanted to take a moment to explain what this IE update policy means for us web developers. The big change is how IE now interacts with Windows Update: Before you had to opt-in to have "Recommended" updates installed automatically. It's likely few folks did. Now, IE upgrades are shipping as "Important" and this class of updates are defaulted to install automatically. A user can still opt-out and immediately after the announcement of this feature they also published details on how enterprises can opt-out. But still, this is a good move, it helps. The policy manifests as: Windows XP holdouts on IE6 or IE7 get the boot up to IE8 Windows Vista and 7 users still on IE7 or even on IE8 get shunted up to IE9 IE10 only works on Win7+, and while no policy has been published for Win7 users, it's likely any IE8/IE9 users will be moved up to IE10. A very smart policy call was that this update policy also includes all of China, which is important because most of their Windows installs are not genuine. Microsoft decided they should get the IE bump anyway, which is great because China has been dominated by IE6 and IE8 for ages. This update procedure was scheduled to start in Australia and Brazil in January 2012. If we look at what happened in Brazil, we have a good shift of users but it's flattened out with a nontrivial amount of left behind users: (see the two blue lines in the ch