uninstall Internet Explorer 8

[inv...@invalid.invalid]

I have Windows XP and wish to uninstall Internet Explorer 8, replacing
it with Google Chrome.

Is it as simple as uninstalling "Windows Internet Explorer 8" in
Control Panel, add or remove programs?

Will uninstalling IE break any part of the operating system?

How do I tell Windows that Chrome is to be the default web browser?

Thank you.

[Paul]

Unless there is something defective about IE8 for
you, and you really want to use an older version
of Internet Explorer, there is really no reason
to remove it.

In Control Panels : Add/Remove Programs, you will
find Add/Remove Windows Components. Internet Explorer
is an item in there. If you "untick" the box, the OS
will "hide" the iexplore.exe executable, so it cannot
be run.

If instead, you use Add/Remove Programs to remove IE8,
all it does is revert to the previous version of
IE, complete with armed and running iexplore.exe.

Note that certain sites *require* IE. For example,
at the current time, the catalog server at Microsoft,
the one that provides various updates, it uses
ActiveX, and Chrome won't work for that.

(Example of searching for KB3146449 as a download...)

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=3146449

*******

Now we come to the second bit of "bad news". Chrome is
no longer supported for WinXP. Yes, you can probably
dig up a crusty version from somewhere and install it,
but it won't be getting any security updates. And Chrome
needs all the help it can get (such as the PPAPI version
of Adobe Flash, otherwise known as PepperFlash). If there
is an exploit in Adobe Flash, then the user is well advised
to receive the corresponding PepperFlash update. Since
Google no longer supports Chrome, they won't be
shipping that to a WinXP user. They will be shipping
it to a Win7 user of Chrome.

So what's a person to do ?

Rethink your browser strategy ?

Look for (yet another) browser ?

We live in a great new world, where sticking
a fork in stuff is all-in-fashion. Hello
to No-Chrome-For-You, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#Windows_XP_and_Vista

"Windows XP and Vista

Support for Google Chrome on Windows XP and Windows Vista
has ended as of April 2016."

The open-source version is Chromium, but I don't know
how updates work on it. Whether the updater is disabled,
and the user is expected to be a rocket-scientist. No idea.
I had it installed here once, and the hardest part was
even finding the damn download. The reason for installing
it, was to learn how to uninstall it for someone :-)

*******

Whether you have Chrome or Chromium, first look
for these files sitting in a folder.

chrome.7z ~150MB
setup.exe ~ 1MB

Now, in a command prompt window, cd to the path
where those files are located. Say
for example, you have C:\path\to\these\files\chrome.7z
Then, in Command Prompt, you would...

cd /d C:\path\to\these\files

If you now do the "dir" command, the two files should be listed.

chrome.7z
setup.exe

Then, if you want to uninstall the Chrome/Chromium package...

if a chromium installation:

setup.exe --uninstall

if a chrome installation:

setup.exe --uninstall --multi-install --chrome --system-level

Anyway, that's why I installed Chromium, so I could
verify the setup was the same (same two files). Someone
managed to get Chromium on their machine, and I haven't
a clue how they did it, because if Google slips in
an installer on you, it installs Chrome, not Chromium.
To install Chromium, is "hard" in terms of availability
and figuring out the URL of the download page.

You can start "burrowing" for Chromium, here. The Win page
has *thousands* of versions, so don't "burrow" for the
download over dialup. It'll take all night to get the
Win page to fully render.

https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html

And this would be today's version. This'll save you
a few seconds.

https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-snapshots/index.html?prefix=Win/390528/

And no, I don't know what you do next. I don't know whether
that's an actual 32 bit version for WinXP or not.

And you don't need to remove IE8 to test it. I keep IE
on this machine, and just... never use it. No problemo.

Good luck :-)
Paul

[philo]

I agree. No need to uninstall IE8 which will just put the machine back
to an older version...simply don't use it.


BTW: I've found out that for the few remaining IE-only websites, the
Maxthon browser is the way to go.

I can get to such sites even from my Linux machine

[Dave Doe]

In article <7uv4ibhgn0b6pr0ba...@4ax.com>,
inv...@invalid.invalid, inv...@invalid.invalid says...

I'd leave the latest version of IE installed if you can. You can't
completely remove IE anyway - is it version 6 that XP ships with? That
can't be uninstalled, it's integrated into the OS. So I'd get IE as up-
to-date as possilble and leave it like that.

You can install any browser in addition, and make it the default. If
you install Google Chrome, it should prompt you when first run to make
it the default. You can also set IE not to prompt to set as the default
browser. Problem solved in that regard.

The other problem though, is that Google Chrome have stopped updating
for XP.

Perhaps you should consider an XP supported browser; I think Opera and
Firefox both support XP still.

--
Duncan.

[JJ]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2016 22:30:23 +0100, inv...@invalid.invalid wrote:
> I have Windows XP and wish to uninstall Internet Explorer 8, replacing
> it with Google Chrome.
>
> Is it as simple as uninstalling "Windows Internet Explorer 8" in
> Control Panel, add or remove programs?
>
> Will uninstalling IE break any part of the operating system?

Uninstalling MSIE8 is safe assuming you still have the uninstall information
files intact. Its uninstaller will simply revert MSIE to its the previous
version, whether it's MSIE7 or MSIE6.

However, you can't actually uninstall MSIE completely because the MSIE web
engine (e.g. MSHTML.DLL and some others files) is heavily used by the
system. The farthest thing one can do is to uninstall the MSIE program and
leave its web engine intact. The MSIE program itself (i.e. IEXPLORE.EXE) is
just a wrapper program that use the web engine.

> How do I tell Windows that Chrome is to be the default web browser?

In Chrome: Settings > Default browser

If after applying the above still doesn't work, you need to set the default
web browser from the Default Programs settings in Windows. Note: the third
party web browser must be registered into Windows first via the above
setting in Chrome.

[inv...@invalid.invalid]

On Thu, 28 Apr 2016 21:24:33 -0500, philo <ph...@privacy.net> wrote:

>I agree. No need to uninstall IE8 which will just put the machine back
>to an older version...simply don't use it.

I browse http://www.cnn.com/ in MSIE 8 under XP. It shows a
corrupted web page.

I browse the same webpage in Google Chrome. It displays correctly.

Is there some way of fixing, or restoring, MSIE 8 so it displays pages
correctly?

[philo]

It's not that IE-8 is broken per-se simply that it's obsolete.

Due to the fact that it's not secure and due to the fact that it does
not render web pages correctly simply do not use it.

There are still browsers that will get continued XP support
(already mentioned)

[Paul]

Part of the page content, will be rendered by Adobe Flash.
Go to Control Panels and look for the Flash control panel.
Use the Advanced tab. Select "Delete All" to lose all the
recorded context in Flash.

*******

Clearing browser cache.

https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=12314

*******

Reset browser wizard.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/1/7/317254BC-6C9D-4532-827A-827041404428/MicrosoftFixit50195.msi

Microsoft Fix it 50195 v2.1.1.8
Reset Internet Explorer settings

( from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/923737 )

That procedure can probably be managed from the menus,
but first you'd have to right-click the title bar and
tick the Menu item so you get a menu bar.

Paul

[Micky]

[Default] On Fri, 29 Apr 2016 16:39:11 +1200, in

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Dave Doe <ha...@work.ok> wrote:

>In article <7uv4ibhgn0b6pr0ba...@4ax.com>,
>inv...@invalid.invalid, inv...@invalid.invalid says...
>>
>> I have Windows XP and wish to uninstall Internet Explorer 8, replacing
>> it with Google Chrome.
>>
>> Is it as simple as uninstalling "Windows Internet Explorer 8" in
>> Control Panel, add or remove programs?
>>
>> Will uninstalling IE break any part of the operating system?
>>
>> How do I tell Windows that Chrome is to be the default web browser?
>>
>> Thank you.
>
>I'd leave the latest version of IE installed if you can. You can't
>completely remove IE anyway - is it version 6 that XP ships with? That
>can't be uninstalled, it's integrated into the OS.

Yes, wasn't it around 1997 or so that MS was sued for having a
monopoly on web browsers, and the plaintiff wanted MS to ship windows
without a (default?) webbrowser and allow the user to install his own?

A major part of MS's defense was t hat IE was integrated with the OS
and couldn't be uninstalled, but I suspect that they wrote it that way
on purpose, maybe even starting when the complaints were starting or
even the lawsuit was in the works.

Nonetheless, iirc the government was about to win (maybe had won in a
lower court) when the election put GWBush in office and his new,
pro-business Attorney General 'compromised', giving MS most of what
they wanted.

However part of the charge against MS was that they gave incomplete or
even incorrect specs to those trying to write browsers for Windows,
which caused those browsers to crash more often than they would have
otherwise. And I think the settlement made MS start giving accurate
specs. Which is probably what led to the much smaller user base for
IE.

But the suit is over, none of us is in a position to sue again, and we
might as well do what you, Dave, and others here suggest. Use the
browser we want but leave ie where it is.

One more factoid. As HTML tags/commands? became more numerous and
some were not understood by Eudora as written, and as html email
became more common, Eudora gave as an option to use the "Microsoft
viewer", which is not IE but is, iiuc, the same viewer that IE uses.
If IE could be completely uninstalled, I suspect it would take the
"Microsoft viewer" along with it, which would impede Eudora and maybe
other software.
??

[Kerr Mudd-John]

On Fri, 29 Apr 2016 01:22:27 +0100, Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote:

> inv...@invalid.invalid wrote:
>> I have Windows XP and wish to uninstall Internet Explorer 8, replacing
>> it with Google Chrome.

[]

>
> Now we come to the second bit of "bad news". Chrome is
> no longer supported for WinXP. Yes, you can probably
> dig up a crusty version from somewhere and install it,
> but it won't be getting any security updates. And Chrome
> needs all the help it can get (such as the PPAPI version
> of Adobe Flash, otherwise known as PepperFlash). If there
> is an exploit in Adobe Flash, then the user is well advised
> to receive the corresponding PepperFlash update. Since
> Google no longer supports Chrome, they won't be
> shipping that to a WinXP user. They will be shipping
> it to a Win7 user of Chrome.

[]

Iron is still available (Chrome/Chromium with the google bits taken out)

https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php

(well, they say the installer works for XP; I don't know about updates)
--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug

[seotae...@gmail.com]

Hi to all.

I have a VirtualBox virtual machine with the Turkish version of Windows XP Pro SP3 installed.

In this virtual machine I've manually uninstalled the European Union Font Update pre-installed in it by going to Safe Mode and need to uninstall IE8.

[Hot-Text]

<seotae...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7b98a2e8-5b45-469c...@googlegroups.com...

Do Not Uninstall
Windows Internet Explorer 8
It Come With SP3 Only

Need Internet Explorer
To Have A Working Network

Sp2 Update to Sp3 = IE 6 to 7 to 8
Uninstall ie8 'Rollback' to ie7
Uninstall ie7 'Rollback' to ie6

Sp2 = Internet Explorer 6 to 7
Uninstall ie7 'Rollback' to ie6

Sp1 = Internet Explorer 6
Update To 7 Only
Uninstall ie7 'Rollback' to ie6

You Have To Have Internet Explorer
So That Firefox Can Have A Network