Microsoft’s Browser Wars Just Got Complicated for SharePoint and Office 365 Users

If you’ve been following the browser wars, you could say the launch of Microsoft Edge was a step forward for Microsoft, but there is some real oversight by the Edge team. Drag and Drop doesn’t work on Microsoft Edge with SharePoint 2013 or Office 365, the work around was using the IE 11 option, but that isn’t so great either no data grid editing capabilities.

Watch the Video of “Side by Side Microsoft Edge and Chrome on Windows 10”

In addition, on Windows 8.1 I just got a prompt to upgrade an “important” update which is to update IE on my work desktop. It wants me to upgrade to IE 11. Neither Edge nor IE 11 works with SharePoint & Office 365 SharePoint Online Data Grids for quickly updating a list in SharePoint. Am I dead in the water on these controls? Nope. There’s a work around. Use Google Chrome. Seriously??? How Chrome got this to work is impressive and should be noted. We still live with ActiveX in SharePoint and I’ve been begging MS to take note of our dependencies on legacy technologies that even the latest versions of IE don’t support (hasn’t worked since the 64 bit IE was introduced). A few of the ActiveX Controls in SharePoint have not worked in Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer Data Grid being a great example.

How crazy is it that Chrome is currently the best browser to use on Windows 10? Is this the new Microsoft?

As a Windows 10 early adopter if you need to edit lists and upload lots of files to Office 365, hands down, you’re best experience is on Chrome…

I’m hoping that the MS Edge team takes note of this oversight so users can make the decision for themselves. Pretty much drag and drop doesn’t work on most web based apps. It’s been disabled. You’ll see an old school No sign (circle with a strike through it) as you attempt to drag and drop to your SharePoint libraries. Verdict? I go back to my recommendation that IT may have to have 2 browser standards. One that supports legacy apps and one that supports modern editing. What’s your option with Windows 10? Best of both worlds apparently today is Chrome. Your move Microsoft Edge team! Talk to the SharePoint team… pretty pleaseJ. The SharePoint 2016 beta experience from my testing of the “alpha” at ignite and I’m finding there is no difference. I don’t want to have to recommend Chrome to my SharePoint friends, but I am. I’ve only been told 3 times when I bring up this issue. Well, the work around is use Chrome. Ok? Really? I’m not anti-google, in fact I use Chrome quite a bit, but I like to offer companies and users a choice. Let’s get back to choice.