Internet Explorer 12 Windows 10 May 2026

Or rather, the Internet Explorer 12 that never was. When Microsoft first started leaking details about Windows 10 back in 2014, the plan seemed simple: Keep Internet Explorer for the old guard, and introduce "Project Spartan" for the future.

Do you have an old Windows 10 beta lying around? Boot it up and see if you can find the IE12 shortcut. Let us know in the comments!

And then it crashes. Hard.

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; Trident/8.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko

If I asked you to name the default browser in Windows 10, you’d probably say . And you’d be right. But if I asked you to look deep into your system folders—past the shortcuts, past the flashy new icons—you’d find a ghost. internet explorer 12 windows 10

I’m talking about .

If you hunt down (leaked to beta collectors), you can find a shortcut for "Internet Explorer 12." Double-clicking it opens a modern, flat browser that looks like a hybrid of Chrome and old IE. It renders most HTML5 sites. It’s fast. Or rather, the Internet Explorer 12 that never was

But look at the User Agent string: