Legacy Family Tree – no Longer Supports Internet Explorer 11

Another problem in the world order of technology. However, this one deals with a retirement of sorts. The software developer of Legacy Family Tree no longer supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.

This is probably a wise decision. Microsoft Internet Explorer is a known security risk. Here is my clients initial request:

My message from you is that my browser needs to be up dated or replaced. If i do that, what will happen to all my saved data? I use Legacy for my Family Tree.

I have found that Family Search is the most reliable source for research.

This was an easy fix for this individual. They were using a Hewlett Packard 1380T computer with Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. This customer was using Microsoft Internet Explorer as their default web browser.

I remotely connected to this computer and changed the default web browser specified by Legacy Family Tree software. I changed it from “Default” to Google Chrome. This individual already had Google Chrome installed.

I explained to them that the developer’s of this Legacy Family Tree software basically no longer supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 11. You could still look up family ancestry information with Microsoft Internet Explorer 11. However, many facets of their website no longer worked correctly.

Legacy Family Tree is just a client software application that allows you to search ancestry information. Some data requires the web based version. This is where Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 comes into play.

Legacy Family Tree is only compatible with Microsoft Edge web browser, Mozilla Firefox web browser, Google Chrome web browser, and Apple Safari web browser. Microsoft Edge web browser was NOT an option since you cannot install it on Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. Since this was a Microsoft operating system environment, then obviously Apple Safari would NOT be an option as well.

Google Chrome was already installed on this computer, so I recommended this be the browser of choice. You have to tell Legacy Family Tree to use Google Chrome instead of the operating system default web browser, which was Microsoft Internet Explorer 11. Open Family Tree Legacy, if NOT already opened.

Select “Options” from the top menu bar. Now you select “Customize”. Click on the “Launch” tab.

Look for “Which Web Browser would you like to use with Legacy?”. Click on the “Change” button. Look for the “Default Browser” dialog box. You will need to find the folder where your web browser is located.

This will be the web browser that you are changing to. Select the web browser’s executable file in the left window and then click on the “OK” button. The Browser field will now show the path and name of this web browser:

C:\ProgramFiles\Google\Chrome.exe

Finally, click on the “Save” button to exit this dialog box. When you create web pages you will see a message box that asks you “Would you like to view the Web pages in your browser”? Click the “Yes “button, which will open these web pages in the web browser you just selected.

I instructed this individual to close Legacy Family Tree and then open it again. Then had them perform some test ancestry searches. Google Chrome was now this programs default web browser.