Internet Explorer 11 desktop app retirement FAQ

Hi, we have several products which rely on IE11 (e.g. which use ActiveX, XBAP). We need to ensure our products work with Edge in IE11 mode and would like to set  up a Test environment to simulate a Windows environment supported by Microsoft post June 2022.

Can you advise what the  test environment should ‘look like’?

We’ve tried using a VM WITHOUT IE11 installed

• Windows 10
• Edge set as the Default browser with ‘Let Internet Explorer open sites in Microsoft Edge’ set to ‘Incompatible sites only’ and ‘Allow sites to be reloaded in Internet Explorer mode’ set to ‘Allow’
• IE11 NOT installed

When we try using our products URL in the Edge browser and try ‘Reload Tab in Internet Explorer mode’ we get the message “Internet Explorer can’t be found. You need to re-install or re-enable Internet Explorer.” So how do we simulate the IE 11 desktop application having been retired / disabled whilst ensuring our legacy sites work OK in Edge with IE mode?   Thanks