Force IE7 Compatibility Mode in IE8 with IIS settings

There a ton of examples on the web of how you can force IE8 into IE7 compatibility mode using a meta tag in the header. 

This tag needs to be first in the <head> (before any css):

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7" />

 

That really stinks if you need to add that to a lot of pages or sites.  It’s much easier just to add the header as real HTTP Header via IIS.  This can be done via IIS 6 or 7.

 

IIS 6

Go to the website, bring up the properties for it, and click on the HTTP Headers tab.

 

image

 HTTP Headers tab of an IIS 6 Website

 

Then, add a new header as below:

imageAdd custom HTTP Header 

 

IIS 7

IIS 7 is much the same.  Just go to the site and click on “HTTP Response Headers”.

 

imageIIS 7 Website Properties – IIS Section 

Then, just add the header:

image Add custom HTTP Header 

Incidentally, this just sets a value in the web.config, as below:

 

image

More later - jv

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