Kurt Shintaku's Blog

I don’t know why our Internet Explorer team got rid of the “Compatibility Mode” icon in the toolbar of Internet Explorer 11/Windows 8.1.  And this isn’t the time or the place to voice my displeasure about this inconvenience.

What I will explain however is how to quickly implement your own keyboard shortcut that will, in a single keystroke, TURN ON COMPATIBILITY MODE for the current website you’re visiting.

1) Install AutoHotKey which works on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, & 8.1. (See my previous post on AutoHotKey’s purpose)

2) Allow it to create the AutoHotkey.ahk script int your “My Documents” folder.

3) Ensure AutoHotKey is running & that it’s icon is in your SysTray. It should look like a green “H”.  If not, run it.

4) Edit AutoHotKey.ahk with Notepad from your My Documents folder.

5) Comment out all other instructions by adding a semi-colon (;) at the beginning of each line.  For example, I added the “;” to the beginning of the following lines:

;#z::Run http://www.autohotkey.com
;
;^!n::
;IfWinExist Untitled – Notepad
;    WinActivate
;else
;    Run Notepad
;return

6) Add the following to the script.

;PROGRAM CTRL-ALT-Z TO TURN ON COMPATIBILITY MODE
;(EXECUTE THE KEYSTROKES: ALT-T, B, [ENTER], ALT-A, ALT-C)
^!z::
Send !t
Sleep 100
Send b{enter}
Sleep 100
Send !a
Sleep 100
Send !c
return

7) Right click on the AutoHotkey icon in the Systray and select “Reload This Script”.

Now when ever you click CTRL-ALT-Z, the web site you’re on will be registered as a site to display in Compatibility Mode.  There may be easier ways to do this but this is how I accomplished the task.  Enjoy.