Office 2016 VLSC versions still use Internet Explorer to display Add-Ins

 

Your Environment

• Platform: PC Desktop
• Host: Excel/Word
• Office version number: 16.0.5266.1000
• Operating System: Windows 10

Expected behavior

Since Internet Explorer support will soon be discontinued, I would expect VLSC versions to use the new WebView 2 instead (like the C2R versions already do).

Current behavior

VLSC versions are still using Internet Explorer to display Add-Ins

Context

Office 2016 still has extended support until 2025 so we want our Add-In to still support Office 2016.
Supporting Internet Explorer is sometimes very tricky and many ES6 features can't be used at all or need to be polyfilled which means a lot of extra effort.
C2R versions of Office 2016 are already using the new WebView 2 instead of Internet Explorer, so it seems the required updates are already out there and just need to be published to VLSC versions as well.

 

GitHub Issue: https://github.com/OfficeDev/office-js/issues/2406