As many of you know, the CRM 2011 UI leverages more “in browser” processing.  Because of this, CRM 2011 will perform better when using the latest version of Internet Explorer (currently IE9) because of IE’s advances in performance through hardware acceleration.  Simply put, CRM 2011 runs best on IE9.  In speaking with many customers about this topic, I typically get the following response:

“We can’t upgrade to IE9 because we have apps that only work in IE7/8. We can’t afford to invest in updating those applications just so we can run CRM on IE9.”

There’s a solution. The reality is that you CAN tell IE9 to render your app in IE7/8 compatibility WITHOUT changing your web app code. Unfortunately, I’ve found that most people just don’t realize it is possible.  The Defining Document Compatibility article explains how to make it so that IE9 will render as if it were a previous version IE.  What most people overlook is that you can do this without modifying a single line of your applications code.  How?  Jump to the Configuring Web Servers to Specify Default Compatibility Modes section of the previous link.  It explains how.  Hopefully this helps in making the decision to upgrade the workstations in your environment to IE9 so that you can take advantage of it’s advances in performance, etc. without breaking your incompatible web apps.

@devkeydet