Disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) for Windows 2008

Nowadays, new laptop is always equip with Hyper-V enabled hardware, such as virtualization enabled processor, 64-bit system. Some of you may want to install Windows 2008 on top of your laptop to try out Hyper-V. During this testing period, you may consider to perform your daily task on your laptop such as accessing your webmail, browse Internet for information etc. But when you try to open IE and accessing a website, IE will always prompt you for security warning and you always need to manually add in the URL for the website you browse into a trusted zone.

Previously in Windows 2003, you may remove this IE Enhanced Security Configuration from Add/Remove program, but when you try to look into Windows 2008 Program and Features, it was missing from there... Can we still be able to disable this setting?

Yes, you still can. For Windows 2008, IE Enhanced Security Configuration setting is resided in Server Manager. After you launch server manager, at the right pane Server Summary page, under the Security Information panel, click on the Configure IE ESC link. After that, a windows will prompt out as below:



Just edit the necessary setting and click on OK. Restart your IE browser, you will find all the security warning is missing, if you go to Internet Options -> Security tab, you will be able to tweak the security level for Internet zone. Last but not lease, please remain the original IE security settings for your production server. This is always the best recommendation from Microsoft.