Disable Compatibility View for UniversitySite at the Server for All Users

Applies To

• Behind the Firewall Installations (vs UniversitySite Cloud)

Intended Audience

• System administrators

Background

Sometimes your IT department may lock down the settings in your browser for Compatibility view and these settings force compatibility view on UniversitySite.  This can cause display and other screen issues inside UniversitySite.  If you can't use Tools, Compatibility view settings in IE to disable compatibility view for UniversitySite in your browser because this is locked down, OR you just want to fix this issue for the entire firm and force UniversitySite to display in the current browser mode, NOT compatibility view, read on.

NOTE: If your organization has a group policy to set your browser to display all pages in your domain in compatibility mode

As long as the X-UA-Compatible <meta> tag is at, or very near, the opening tag, then IE 10 will respect the meta tag above the group policy.

IE 9 and 10 will respect the met tag despite the group policy provided that you add the HTTP header by adding it to an .htaccess.

Steps

add a setting to your web.config for UniversitySite to bypass this issue. I've not confirmed this works, but I'm pretty sure it will and is safe to try, and if it doesn't work, revert. 

This should allow you to disable compatibility view for UniversitySite entirely for all your users at the web server level.

1. Backup your web.config file at c:\inetpub\wwwroot\UniversitySite
2. Search for the string <system.webServer>
3. Inside that section, but NOT within one of the existing settings, add the following

<system.webServer>
	<httpProtocol>
		<customHeaders>
		<clear />
		<add name="X-UA-Compatible" value="IE=Edge" />
		</customHeaders>
	</httpProtocol>
</system.webServer>
	

4. Save your changes to the web.config

Testing

1. Open your desktop browser
2. Browse to your UniversitySite web page
3. Confirm that the artifact or missing button or obviously incorrect page load is now displaying correctly
4. Hit F12 and ensure you see Via X-UA-compatible HTTP Header, instead of an earlier browser version e.g. 7

If you see something like the image below, you might want to double check your edits and ensure you saved the web.config changes and refreshed your page.  A dead giveaway is that this was in IE11 but is in 7 document mode, and the fact that it says "Via local compatibility view settings".