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How can I show a message to IE6/IE7 browsers to upgrade to IE8 and have IE8 not show the IE7 warning?

Asked 2009-05-04T22:52:55.217
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I want to only allow users with IE8 (not IE6, IE7) or another browser to access my site when logged in.

I followed: http://code.google.com/p/ie6-upgrade-warning/ But I also wanted it to not allow IE7 users to use the main site when logged in (they can view public pages.) The reason is that the main web application has a lot of JavaScript effects that will only work 100% in IE8 rendering mode (or any other browser aside from IE.)

The problem with modifying the ie6 upgrade warning to be ie7 is that it looked like IE8 displayed my webpage in an IE7 rendering mode and "lies" about being ie7 and triggers the IE7 stylesheet code.

So how can I force IE8 to always render my page in IE8 mode?

internet-explorer internet-explorer-8
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Probably the best way would be to detect the user's browser User-Agent string and redirect them to a page asking them to upgrade (or download a different browser such as firefox or chrome) if they are using an old version of IE. You can see examples of the user agents of IE 7 and 8 on this IE developer blog entry. Older versions of IE follow a similar pattern.

One thing you should not do, however, is assume that any user agent string not following a certain pattern is invalid. Just check for MSIE ([0-9]) and see if it's in range; if it's missing entirely, assume the browser is supported. If it's MSIE 7, then further check for the Trident marker indicating compatiblity mode (and, I suppose, ask the user to turn it off). This will allow for other, future upstart browsers to have a fighting chance at rendering your page without turning them away at the door :)

answered 2009-05-04T23:13:31.860

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