Windows 7 - Uninstall Internet Explorer

[colonelciller]

if I uninstall Internet Explorer in Windows 7 will I lose my ability to update the OS?

 

[masteryoda34]

Last time I checked it was not possible to uninstall Internet Explorer.

 

[colonelciller]

I think you can by going to "uninstall a program" --> Turn Windows features on or off --> uncheck Internet Explorer


by doing this I was able to completely uninstall windows media player (for example)

 

[colonelciller]

 

[theevilsharpie]

That will uninstall the user-accessible front-end for Internet Explorer, but the libraries and what-not that other programs depend on will continue to function.

If you really want to remove that little bit of IE, knock yourself out.

 

[Fardringle]

Actually, that option will only uninstall Internet Explorer 10 and revert the system back to Internet Explorer 9. And Windows Update will just install IE10 again unless you specifically tell it not to.

 

[blankslate]

Just install another browser and make that the default one that opens when you click a link.

For example I have chrome as my default browser and when I click on the more information link for a Windows update it opens up the page in Chrome...

Unless you know some delete-fu you're probably stuck with I.E. 10 installed on your system... that doesn't mean you have to use it though.

 

[Bubbaleone]

I'm in agreement with everything said thus far, and will add that when IE gets updated to a newer version, Windows Explorer also gets it's core files updated. As masteryoda34 points out, turning off IE in Windows Features removes it from service, but the updated versions of files that IE and Explorer share are still in use by Explorer.

 

[colonelciller]

thanks for the replies, very informative

 

[thewhat]

if I uninstall Internet Explorer in Windows 7 will I lose my ability to update the OS?

Not sure why you'd ask this, since those seem like totally separate processes.. Anyway no, you'll not lose that ability. It will work just fine.

Actually, that option will only uninstall Internet Explorer 10 and revert the system back to Internet Explorer 9.

No, it will simply disable IE10 (at least the "web browsing part", that is).
If you want to revert to IE9 you need to uninstall IE10 from 'Installed Updates'.

 

[nemesismk2]

the last time to tried to uninstall all it did was add Internet Explorer 8

 

[Ketchup]

if I uninstall Internet Explorer in Windows 7 will I lose my ability to update the OS?

Older versions of Windows required IE to run Windows Update, but I don't see why there would be a need for it in Vista, 7, or 8.

 

[ViRGE]

Older versions of Windows required IE to run Windows Update, but I don't see why there would be a need for it in Vista, 7, or 8.

You wouldn't need IE to run the updater. However if you could actually remove IE the OS itself would go to hell because Trident is the basis of the HTML rendering API offered to applications.

 

[mikeymikec]

Even if IE isn't being used as a browser, from a security perspective I would recommend keeping it up-to-date (in terms of version number as well as security patches). Sometimes other programs will utilise IE to show you web page content.

While a lot of security vulnerabilities will target many versions of IE, it's logical that the latest version is least likely to be affected. IMO it has been at least ten years since Microsoft dropped their apparent habit of "hmm, what new features can we come up with, without thinking for two seconds about their security implications?"

- edit - *nod* to virge, I just noticed that you had made at least one of the points I've just made