Compatibility View

Internet Explorer 8 includes a rendering engine that is more standards compliant. The new rendering engine displays most Web pages exactly as the Web designer intended. However, some Web designers might need to update the style sheets and HTML used to render their page so that the page appears correctly in Internet Explorer 8.

If you discover a page that does not display correctly in Internet Explorer 8, you can enable Compatibility View to render the page similar to the way it is rendered in Internet Explorer 7. To display the current page using Compatibility View, click Page and then click Compatibility View. Internet Explorer will re-render the current page and display it similar to the way it appears if you open it in Internet Explorer 7.

To configure Internet Explorer to always use Compatibility View for specific pages, click Page and then click Compatibility View Settings. Use the Compatibility View Settings dialog box to create a list of Web sites. Additionally, you can select the Include Updated Websites Lists From Microsoft, Display Intranet Sites In Compatibility View, and Display All Websites In Compatibility View check boxes to control the rendering for different sites.

In Group Policy, you can modify these settings for all computers in your domain. Typically, you should do this only if testing shows that Internet Explorer 8 cannot correctly render an important Web site (such as an internal Web site) without using Compatibility View. Even then, a better approach is to update the Web site so that it renders correctly. If that is not immediately possible, use the Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer \Compatibility View\Use Policy List Of Internet Explorer 7 Sites Group Policy setting to add the URL to the list of URLs that use Compatibility View.

Web site authors can force Internet Explorer 8 to use Compatibility View for a Web page by adding the following metatag.