IExplore.exe References After Windows 11 Upgrades

Help Robot
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1

How will bots handle IExplore.exe references in the code after Windows 11 upgrades? Has anyone run into this yet?

One of our biggest processes uses IE extensively because the app we’re retrieving data from will only function on IE. Although we run our processes on Windows Server, which will still have IE, we won’t have that locally on our desktops.

2

Any application that you automate, IE.exe or any for that matter, needs to be present on your studio environment for development, and on your runtime environment for execution.

And just to avoid confusion: are you talking about the actual IE.exe or about IExplore.exe a.k.a. Internet Explorer?

3

Thanks for the reply. I’ve edited the post accordingly. At any rate, IE is going away soon. As existing bots will be able to still run on Windows Server, it seems improbable that Studio or Robot will be able to locate selectors that were created in Internet Explorer. Many app development shops are hedging their bets on being able to run Edge in IE Mode.

4

At my company we only recently transitioned from IE to Edge, and all the usual problems that came with it…
Custom applications that only run in IE, different behaviour of Edge and so on.

For our RPA solutions we had to migrate each script to run on Edge. (Ironically the 2021 stable release of UiPath brings a migration tool for it :D) We went old school manual.

For sites/web apps that are compatible in Edge (or other browsers) we had to change:

  • selectors for attach and open browser activities
  • a few activities that had nested/own browser selectors not inherited by the attach containers
  • rebuild any save-as workflow, and upload dialogues as well as alert/messageboxes.
    (luckily Edge is very consistent in it’s responses sinces it is based on Chromium so it is easy, just a lot of work depending on the # of scripts you have, and howmuch you rely on self built library activities).

We had one application that had to run in Edge in IE-compatibilymode.
Migration here is slightly different. Your open browser activity still changes, but all selectors around down/upload/dialogue boxes remain the old IE selectors. (So as soon as an app is made compatible with Edge you have to migrate that bot again… jey!)

Nonetheless…
If your runtime server still has IE available, existing scripts based on IE will continue to work as-is.
You run into trouble when you need to add or update to that script, if you don’t have IE available on your studio environment, unless you build all of your UI selectors by hand, and like testing it out on your production environment afterwards. (A nice expert challenge?)

1 Like
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Here, migration is a little different. Although your open browser activity changes, all selectors around the down/upload/dialogue boxes stay the same as they were in Internet Explorer.