Microsoft has now decided that "Project Spartan", the code name for their next-generation web browser for Windows 10, will also be the only browser that will use the company's new web rendering engine. Internet Explorer 11 will keep the same engine for Windows 10 that it currently has for Windows 8.1.
Originally, the plan was for IE11 to have both a legacy engine and the new engine for Windows 10, but Microsoft announced today that, based on feedback from Windows Insiders testers and others, it had decided to only use the new rendering engine for Project Spartan. The company outlined the reasons for this decision in a blog post:
- Project Spartan was built for the next generation of the Web, taking the unique opportunity provided by Windows 10 to build a browser with a modern architecture and service model for Windows as a Service. This clean separation of legacy and new will enable us to deliver on that promise. Our testing with Project Spartan has shown that it is on track to be highly compatible with the modern Web, which means the legacy engine isn't needed for compatibility.
- For Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 to be an effective solution for legacy scenarios and enterprise customers, it needs to behave consistently with Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Hosting our new engine in Internet Explorer 11 has compatibility implications that impact this promise and would have made the browser behave differently on Windows 10.
- Feedback from Insiders and developers indicated that it wasn't clear what the difference was between Project Spartan and Internet Explorer 11 from a web capabilities perspective, or what a developer would need to do to deliver web sites for one versus the other.
Microsoft also announced that it will hold a special Windows 10 Web Platform Summit that will be open to the public on May 5-6 at the company's Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, CA.
Source: Microsoft
