AngularJS, Internet Explorer 9 and watch error

While working on an enterprise project (of course…) I run into an error with Angular (1.3.13), Internet Explorer 9 and $watch-ing a scope when programming a directive:

TypeError: Object doesn’t support property or method ‘watch’

I’ll never find out what the reason is. The collective wisdom of Angular users claims that including JQuery solves it, for me it didn’t (neither did ES5 shim). I ended up working entirely around $watch by using application logic:


app.directive("footer", ["$rootScope", function($rootScope){
return {
restrict: 'E',
scope: {
user: '='
},
template: 'home | loginlogout {{activeUser.id}} | workspaces',
controller: function($scope) {
$scope.watch("user",function(){

//....

});
$scope.activeUser=app.user;
});
}
};
}]);

1. a setter which is notified of the change
2. custom jquery events which are fired by the setter
3. The directive listens to the jquery events