
The update from 10 to 11 however, isn’t really as much about adding support for a new version of Windows as it is about improving the browser overall. I think that’s specifically why IE 10 exists. And you’ll notice that IE 10 is what was included in Windows 8. For people not using Windows 8, there probably wasn’t a tremendous amount of value to the update. The update from IE 9 to 10 was really more about Windows 8 than anything else.

Now that’s actually one of the reasons that I think that “important” and “optional” may have gotten changed. Updates simply include more security fixes or design changes, not all of which get applied as patches to the older versions. It’s more standards-compliant and it’s faster than previous versions. The reason I recommend always updating to the latest IE is actually twofold: one, Internet Explorer has fundamentally become a better browser. But for the vast majority of people it is indeed a safe upgrade. These days it’s actually pretty good.Īs with any product, some small number of people are absolutely going to have issues.


In the past, Internet Explorer had some rocky updates, and in some ways it got a bad reputation because of that. These days, the number of people who report problems due to the update is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. In general, I recommend always taking the latest Internet Explorer update. I want to talk a little bit about why you should take the update, and my theory on why it changed from “optional” to “important”. Now, I’m not really sure what the criteria for important or optional might be according to Microsoft, but in general, my tendency would be to take the update. Instead, as you noted, IE 11 is included immediately with Windows Update. Windows Update would actually show you IE 10, if that was what you needed first. Let me answer the last part first: no, you won’t need to install IE 10 before IE 11.
