Microsoft Edge Classic support ends on March 9, 2021
Microsoft will stop supporting its Microsoft Edge classic web browser in all supported versions of the company's Windows 10 operating system on March 9, 2021.
The company revealed its plans on its Tech Community site yesterday. It notes that the new Microsoft Edge is replacing classic Edge, and that millions of users have upgraded to the Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge already.
The new Microsoft Edge browser offers better web compatibility and standards support among other features.
The new Microsoft Edge web browser was released as a Stable browser earlier this year for Windows 10 but also other versions of Windows as well as non-Microsoft operating systems such as Mac OS X. A Linux version has been promised by Microsoft but it has not been released yet.
The classic Microsoft Edge web browser will receive security updates until March 9, 2021. The date falls on the March Patch Tuesday, and it will be the last time Microsoft will release security updates for the classic web browser.
The Chromium-based Microsoft Edge web browser may be offered to users via Windows Update but it can also be installed manually. Even unsupported Windows 7 systems may receive the browser via Windows Update.
Microsoft plans to include it as the default web browser on all Windows 10 versions starting with Windows 10 version 20H2 that is coming out in a few months.
It is unclear what is going to happen after the date though as Microsoft did not make it clear whether the version of legacy Edge will remain on the system or if it will be removed or disabled in some form.
Microsoft released deployment documentation for deploying the new Microsoft Edge browser in Enterprise environments.
Internet Explorer 11Â
In the same announcement, Microsoft published the timeline for ending Internet Explorer 11 support in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Teams will stop supporting IE11 on November 30, 2020, and one year from now, on August 17, 2021, Microsoft 365 will stop supporting the classic Internet Explorer browser as well.
Internet Explorer mode, an option to run sites using Internet Explorer's rendering engine in Microsoft Edge, will not work either to connect to these services after support ends.
Microsoft notes that customers will either have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps or services using Internet Explorer 11.
This means that after the above dates, customers will have a degraded experience or will be unable to connect to Microsoft 365 apps and services on IE 11. For degraded experiences, new Microsoft 365 features will not be available or certain features may cease to work when accessing the app or service via IE 11
The company states that it has no plans to drop Internet Explorer support entirely in Windows though.
Closing Words
In seven months, Microsoft Edge classic will not receive security updates or any other update anymore. Most Windows 10 systems will probably be migrated to the new Edge browser that is based on Chromium by then considering that any upcoming Windows 10 feature update will include the new browser as the default system browser.
Microsoft will continue to push the browser via Windows Update as well on Windows 10. Since it has not been released for older versions of Windows, it is only Windows 10 systems that are affected by Microsoft's decision.
Now You: New or old Edge, which do you prefer, and why?
What I am not reading is that Microsoft when updating in 20H2 the Edge classic to the Chrome Edge or Microsoft is at the same time completely removing, all traces of the redundant Edge classic?
Any thoughts about that Martin?
Microsoft did not mention whether classic Edge will be removed. My best guess is that it won’t be removed right away but that it won’t receive any updates anymore. Microsoft will display a warning notification to users probably when classic Edge is opened. Eventually, it is clear that classic Edge is going to be removed from systems it is installed on.
So IE will outlive Legacy Edge! Just crazy
@anona
Not crazy. They keep IE11 around because some enterprises still need to run old cruft, IE mode in Chromium-based Edge can’t emulate its behavior perfectly yet.
Legacy Edge was just redundant to them at this point, new Edge is their new “modern” browser.
I’m running Windows 8.1 & I disabled the new edge and re-activated IE11 as my back-up browser simply because edge was extremely slow.
Funny. MS was busted over 20 years ago for too much IE, now they can’t get rid of it.