Bootstrap 3 with respond.js and html5shiv.js still not working on IE8

Question 1

Okay so the non-responsive css file wasn't exactly what we were looking for. However, we found the problem:

IE8 doesn't seem to like the @import-property.

We used a global css file which imported the necessary styles. When moving all stylesheets to the header and including them with a normal link-tag, it works.

It's weird though, the regular bootstrap styling (buttons, backgrounds and such) got imported properly. The grid system was not. I guess Internet Explorer works in mysterious and retarded ways.

Question 2

I had the same problem. In my case it was the QUIRKS mode that messed it up. IE can be forced to go into Quirks mode by replacing the standard (Bootstrap 3.0 suggested):

<!DOCTYPE HTML>

to

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">

Question 3

Always make sure that you load the following scripts after loading jQuery.

Especially in WordPress and other frameworks some people tend to include jQuery just before the closing tag and therefore after the html5shiv.js and respond.js script, which causes issues in IE8

<!-- Include first -->
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
  <script src="js/html5shiv.js"></script>
  <script src="js/respond.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

Question 4

<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <!-- Bootstrap core CSS -->
    <link href="css/modern-business.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="font-awesome/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
    <link href="css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen">
    <script src="js/jquery.js"></script>
    <script src="js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
    <script src="js/modern-business.js"></script>
     <!--[if lt IE 9]>
      <script src="js/html5shiv.js"></script>
      <script src="js/respond.js"></script>
    <![endif]-->  
    </head>

if you want to try in local...try through localhost, or create a QA server and set the content and try. we need respond.js for bootstrap 3 and it wont work in local machine if we just put it in js and append it to html in header. It will say access denied. it works only through server as ie have security restriction. :P