How do I force Internet Explorer to render in Standards Mode and NOT in Quirks?

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer-8 Internet Explorer-7 Quirks Mode X Ua-Compatible

Internet Explorer Problem Overview

I am coding a Frontend which works well in IE7 Standards Mode and IE8 Standards Mode.

When I start up Internet Explorer and load the page both IE7 and IE8 go to Quirks Mode directly. How can I force both IE7 and IE8 to always load the page in Standards Mode?

I have no special meta tags added so far.

Thanks for helping me out

Edit: My doctype and head looks as follows at the moment:

<!DOCTYPE html> 
<html lang="de"> 
<head> 
	<title>...</title> 
	<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
	<meta charset="utf-8" />
	<script src="js/html5.js"></script> 

	(...)
</head>

Internet Explorer Solutions

Solution 1 - Internet Explorer

This is the way to be absolutely certain :

<!doctype html> <!-- html5 -->
<html lang="en"> <!-- lang="xx" is allowed, but NO xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", lang:xml="", and so on -->
<head>
<meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="IE=Edge"/> 
<!-- as the **very** first line just after head-->
..
</head>

Reason :
Whenever IE meets anything that conflicts, it turns back to "IE 7 standards mode", ignoring the x-ua-compatible.

(I know this is an answer to a very old question, but I have struggled with this myself, and above scheme is the correct answer. It works all the way, everytime)

Solution 2 - Internet Explorer

Sadly, they want us to use a tag to let their browser know what to do. Look at this documentation, it tell us to use:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" >

and it should do.

Solution 3 - Internet Explorer

Using html5 doctype at the beginning of the page.

<!DOCTYPE html>
Force IE to use the latest render mode

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
If your target browser is ie8, then check your compatible settings in IE8

I blog this in details

Solution 4 - Internet Explorer

Adding the correct doctype declaration and avoiding the XML prolog should be enough to avoid quirks mode.

Solution 5 - Internet Explorer

I know this question was asked over 2 years ago but no one has mentioned this yet.

The best method is to use a http header

Adding the meta tag to the head doesn't always work because IE might have determined the mode before it's read. The best way to make sure IE always uses standards mode is to use a custom http header.

Header:

name: X-UA-Compatible  
value: IE=edge

For example in a .NET application you could put this in the web.config file.

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

Solution 6 - Internet Explorer

It's possible that the HTML5 Doctype is causing you problems with those older browsers. It could also be down to something funky related to the HTML5 shiv.

You could try switching to one of the XHTML doctypes and changing your markup accordingly, at least temporarily. This might allow you to narrow the problem down.

Is your design breaking when those IEs switch to quirks mode? If it's your CSS causing things to display strangely, it might be worth working on the CSS so the site looks the same even when the browsers switch modes.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	maze	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Internet Explorer	davidkonrad	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Internet Explorer	Alfabravo	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Internet Explorer	ValidfroM	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Internet Explorer	safetycopy	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Internet Explorer	Daniel Little	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Internet Explorer	safetycopy	View Answer on Stackoverflow