IE11 F12 developer tools greyed out

Question

Wondering if anyone's seen the below behaviour with the IE11 F12 developer and if there's a fix?

OS is Windows Server 2008 SP1 with all updates applied.

Screenshot attached

Answer 1

I recently discovered this same problem... F12 Developer Tools grayed out.

It turns out I was trying to open the dev tools from a blank tab. IE11 apparently doesn't like that. If I navigate to a page with content (not about:blank), then the dev tools show up again, like normal.

I feel a little sheepish, but only a little. I'm use to Chrome's dev tools, and they open up fine on a blank (about:blank) page.

UPDATE

Okay, about:blank works fine in IE11. It's when I first open IE without navigating anywhere at all (just the original New Tab) that dev tools is disabled.

Answer 2

In IE11:

Internet Options > Advanced tab > Reset Internet Explorer settings section > Reset... button

I was on live chat with Microsoft Support and they recommended this. After resetting, the F12 tools were no longer grayed out.

Answer 3

In IE11, if F12 Developer Tools is missing or grayed out, check this registry setting:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\IEDevTools\Disabled

If the value of the Disabled key is 1, set it to 0.