You can bring Internet Explorer back to life in Windows 11 if you’re a glutton for punishment

“What is dead may never die.” Much like a White Walker in Game of Thrones, Internet Explorer joins the ranks of the undead that are determined to wreak havoc on humanity. Microsoft tamed the Internet Explorer beast in Windows 11, preventing anyone from summoning it and running its ancient code, but now one dastardly Twitter user has broken Internet Explorer’s chains and set it free to run freely on Windows 11.

Internet Explorer was never supposed to work on Windows 11. Microsoft disabled IE in Windows 11, making it the first version of Windows without IE for more than 20 years. In fact, if you even try to launch Internet Explorer in Windows 11, the OS simply forces you into Microsoft Edge.

But Twitter user @XenoPanther has discovered a way to get Internet Explorer running on Windows 11. While the star of Windows officially died aged 26 in June, it’s still accessible thanks to the ancient (and forgotten) parts of the operating system that still exist in 2022.

It’s just a matter of searching for Internet Options in the Start menu, launching the control panel applet, selecting the programs tab, hitting “manage add-ons,” and then clicking the “Learn more about toolbars and extensions.” For some reason, this launches Internet Explorer, bypassing the commands that force you into Edge. The browser works just as you’d expect, and you’ll be open to all the web incompatibilities and security nightmares that exist with using IE in its unsupported state.

And you thought Internet Explorer was dead didn’t you? Muahahahaha.