Microsoft details coming IE10 upgrades designed for Windows 8

Windows 8’s spell checking functionality will be present on Internet Explorer 10 in its entirety. Included, of course, will be the identification of misspelled words (of course), the user-initiated correction of noted misspellings, and auto-correction.

According to the company, this means that IE10 will contain “the first browser-based implementation of auto-correct.” This will allow for more effective ‘on the go’ spell checking, which should improve typing in a browser in sub-optimal use instances. Say, perhaps, on a tablet in a bouncy train.

Right, the idea here is that as Windows 8, for which Internet Explorer is being built (it will run on Windows 7 as well), has a new touch focus, the IE brand needs to adapt to help the OS meet its goals. That means easier typing, and thus the inclusion of auto-correct. You almost wonder why it’s not standard already.

However, it appears that not all decisions are being made with great foresight. If a word is autocorrected, and the user wishes for IE to stop such actions in the future in regards to that word, they can. But here are the steps to doing so: “In addition to using the mouse, the auto-correction menu can be activated via the keyboard by moving the insertion point inside of the word and pressing SHIFT+F10.” Right, because a tablet has a mouse, and soft keyboards have the F10 key handy. Not really.

So there are steps to be made. Microsoft is also baking in simple language switching for spellcheck, which will certainly be a godsend for those can speak more than one language. On the whole, Internet Explorer 10 is peripherally shaping up to be a functional upgrade to IE9; I don’t see anything that we particularly dislike. I can say however, after running a test over the last week employing IE9 as a daily browser, it is good to be back on Chrome.