Let’s have some fun guys! We are going to run ancient software in Windows 8. This time, however, it’s not any old software but a component of Windows that is almost two decades old! We are going to run Internet Explorer version 4.0 on Windows 8.0. Yes, I am serious! Let’s get to it.

We know that Windows 8 comes with Internet Explorer 10 installed It’s not possible to simply downgrade six versions (even if it was, results would be disastrous.) So we are going to run IE4 alongside IE10. That way, we are not harming Windows 8 a single bit. If you are interested in trying this yourself, I’ll have the link at the end of this article. But here are some screenshots and their description showing IE4 running on Windows 8.

IE4 About
This is IE4 running on Windows 8. This about dialogue box has a nice animation that is pretty modern looking. I wish the current versions of IE did this.
IE4's favorites menu. The content of this menu is the same as that for IE10. If you open IE4 on a PC logged in with your Microsoft account, you will be able to access all your synced favorites directly from IE4.
IE4’s favorites menu. The content of this menu is the same as that for IE10. If you open IE4 on a PC logged in with your Microsoft account, you will be able to access all your synced favorites directly from IE4.
IE4 Folder Options
IE4 comes with the legacy folder options. The most interesting thing about this is that changing settings on this ancient dialogue box WILL CHANGE THE BEHAVIOR OF WINDOWS 8 FILE EXPLORER! That is, if you choose an option here, that option will be applied to your Windows 8 file manager.
IE4 Options
This is the classic IE Options Dialogue box. It has less options than that for IE10, but the options dialogue box has remained between these versions. NOTE: Changing settings in this dialogue box WILL CHANGE YOUR IE10 SETTINGS! For instance, if you change your IE home page, it will set that home page for IE10 as well.
IE4 Explorer Integration
IE4 was deeply integrated with Windows 98 and 95. It blurred the lines between Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer. This integration allows IE4 to display the My Computer folder in Windows 8.
Send to OneNote from IE4
You can send web pages to OneNote from IE4!
IE4 Extendability Sidebar
This sidebar can show you favorites, history, and the now obsolete Channels
Legacy Download Manager
Remember that downloading things in the 90’s looked like this?

If you want to try running IE4 on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 8.1, then simply download IE4 zip file from here: http://browsers.evolt.org/archive/ie/win32/standalone/ie401_nt.zip
Once you extract the zip file, you will see the ie4 exe file. Simply run it. If you get an error message, try setting the compatibility to Windows XP Service Pack 3. This works best in 32-bit Windows. While you can run IE4 on a 64-bit OS, you will see glitches. Running modern web pages can and will result in critical errors. To ensure that you can launch IE4, you will need to change your IE home page to about:blank to prevent IE4 from automatically loading a web page. You can do this from the Internet Options dialogue box of Internet Explorer installed on your OS. Changing the homepage of your current IE will also change it for IE4 and vice versa.

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