IE11 F12 developer tools greyed out

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.

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.

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.

We have seen this issue. Some times the F12 tools will appear undocked when this happens. Do you see that happening for you? At least one bug related to this was fixed in a recent Windows update. Install the latest Windows Update and let me know if you still see the issue.