See here for Microsoft's Web browser support policy: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/gp/microsoft-internet-explorer/en-us
On very specific Microsoft operating systems that are still supported (still within their Extended Support periods), Microsoft is still providing security patches for old Internet Explorer versions as far back as Internet Explorer 8, as I write this. (The sole IE7 entry on that Web page has now dropped out of Extended Support.) IE8 will continue to receive security patches on those couple of still supported niche Microsoft operating systems (point of sale) for about two more years. On desktops and laptops, there's nothing older than IE11 that Microsoft still patches, except per special customer-specific agreements. IE11 has an "Enterprise Mode" that's designed to accommodate older IE-specific Web sites reasonably well. If you have a customer that insists on your support for a Web browser/OS combination that is no longer generally receiving security patches, my advice would be to require your customer to sign a written security warning periodically, at least before every contract renewal. But maybe you shouldn't even allow that. There is no technical reason why their need to run an unsupported Web browser for other specific, internal uses needs to hold you back. Virtual machines and remote access solutions allow customers to freely mix old and new browser versions if they need to. For example, if you have a client that is still running XP (yikes!), VirtualBox 4.3.40 is still available for download and is the last release compatible with XP. VirtualBox Version 4.3.40 can then run a Linux guest (e.g. Lubuntu LTS) with the latest Firefox browser, for example. This is something of a worst case. The reverse -- running old IE in a locked down virtual machine on a supported operating system -- is preferable, of course. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
