Starting with Windows 8, Internet Explorer is present in Windows in two different modes – the desktop mode and the app mode. The desktop mode opens like any other Windows application as it has always been, but the app mode opens like a full screen app and offers a unique interface that works very well with touchscreen devices. However, the app mode of the internet explorer does not allow all the websites to display the Adobe Flash content. It limits the websites to use the Flash content to only a specific list supplied by Microsoft. Although there are thousands of websites in the list of allowed sites (allowed to use Flash), yet you may encounter some website not listed there and therefore won’t be able to enjoy the Flash content like games or videos on it. Fortunately, it is very easy to enable any website to play Flash content in the app mode of Internet Explorer.
Here is how you can enable any website to use Flash in the app mode of Internet Explorer:
- The following screenshot is of a website where Adobe Flash is not working in the IE app mode. Close the app mode of Internet Explorer if running.
- Copy the following string, and paste it in Windows File Explorer’s address bar. Replace the “USERNAME” with your own Windows username and press Enter. For example, my Windows username is “Trish” as can be seen in the screenshot. This should open the IECompatData folder located in your user profile.
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IECompatData\
- Right-click on the iecompatdata.xml file and select Edit from the context-menu. If you have Notepad++ installed, then choose Edit with notepad++ as Notepad++ is a much better text editor. I recommend that you install Notepad++ for editing this file, but Windows Notepad will also work.
- When the XML file is loaded, search for <Flash> inside this file.
- Add a new line immediately after <Flash>. This new line should contain the domain name of the website that you want to enable flash for between the tags <domain></domain>. For example, if you want to enable trishtech.com, then the new line would become
<domain>trishtech.com</domain>
- Save the file by pressing the hotkey Ctrl+S.
- That’s it. Now you can enjoy the flash content on your newly added website in the app mode of Internet Explorer. The following screenshot is of the same website, but now the flash content is loaded even in the IE app mode.
Conclusion: Microsoft has limited the number of websites that are allowed to play the Flash content in the app mode of Internet Explorer in Windows 8 and later. But you can easily add your favorite site to the whitelisted site and access the flash content on it when viewed through the app mode of Internet Explorer.