How do I uninstall Internet Explorer from windows?

Question

Seems simple, right? Well it's not listed as a program, and no updates. So uninstalling from control panel is out of the question. And deleting them manually give a "You need to be TrustedInstaller" message. So Of course I Googled it, and I tried to follow the steps to give my user account full-access to the files of Internet Explorer but it won't let me edit it from properties. So my theory here is that by figuring out how to get into some ultra-super-secret-high-security portion of windows I can change the settings and hopefully leave with minor damage to my operating system.

So can one of you please show me how to uninstall this. Keep in mind that I'm not just some idiot with a laptop, uninstalling programs is a piece of cake. But I think the problem is IE was installed when I got the computer which means it's one tough cookie to get off.

It's a windows 7, Internet Explorer does not tell me it's version, but by comparing pictures of internet explorer's I can conclude that it's ie9 or later.

Solution 1

On add/remove programs window, select the 3rd option on the left tab, it should say something like "add or remove windows components".

From there, you should find an "internet explorer" checkbox. unchecking it removes internet explorer.

edit

since you seem to have a permission issue, i will explain how to solve it:

takeown /f <directory name> /r /d y

icacls <directory name> /grant administrators:F /t

the following commands grant you ownership and full rights to a given directory.

(assuming you are on administrators group)

Solution 2

This will not really uninstall IE per se, but I reckon it should serve your purposes:

• Open the start menu and type in Turn Windows features on or off.
• Select it; once the list of features gets populated, you simply need to un-check the option for IE.

This method is clean and won't raise any issues. On a side note, this is how you "install/uninstall" the default games, media features and the like as well.

P.S. There is no clean way to actually remove IE from your Win7 OS. As the Wikipedia article on the Removal of IE (yes, there is actually one, believe it or not),

Microsoft has held that this is not meaningful; that in Windows 98 and newer versions, "Internet Explorer" is not a separate piece of software but simply a brand name for the Web-browsing and HTML-displaying capacities of the Windows operating system. In this view, the result of removing IE is simply a damaged Windows system; to have a working system without IE one must replace Windows entirely.

Comments

[BBMAN225]

I need to remove it because of major technical problems and I want to uninstall and re-install currently I'm using firefox because the technical issues make internet explorer impossible to use. Also, I like to believe that with enough know-how you can do anything you want to your personal computer. So I do think that it's possible to uninstall internet explorer.

[Karan]

Have you tried a browser reset? What exactly is your problem with JavaScript in IE? (In IE as in most programs, Help / About will tell you the exact version.)

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

remove it from there, then use a registry cleaner, like ccleaner per example, to remove the leftovers.

[BBMAN225]

Explain how to use ccleaner and what exactly it does? I don't trust programs that can get through my computers permissions like that. I'd need to know more about it

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

ccleaner is a very commonly used tool to clean bad registry entries as well as crapware from applications installed on your machine. note: if the problem is permissions, have you tried the takeown command?

[BBMAN225]

Interesting.. Seems to have worked although the files are still there... I'm curious what will happen when I try to re-install a new internet explorer.

[Roney Michael]

@BBMAN225: Why exactly do you need to reinstall IE anyway? Maybe SO could help with that. Also, I hope you had gone through this article beforehand.

[BBMAN225]

JavaScript isn't working. Of course I've already burned through the process of narrowing it down to an internet explorer error. Because after noting that the javascript add-on did not show up, I re-installed it, and one for internet explorer specifically. Then I checked and triple checked that they were all enabled and nothing.

[BBMAN225]

After installing ie again the error persists, though because it was never uninstalled to begin with and the instalation was so fast I expect it merely turned it on

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

@BBMAN225 i have edited my answer to help you to the full extend i am able to.

[BBMAN225]

I've tried many-a commands, but I have never heard of the takeown command.. but I just typed "takeown /?" so gimme a minute to read this

[BBMAN225]

I don't really understand it, please explain.

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

trying to make the complicated simple: it changes permissions of access recursively to the given directory and puts you in charge of any file or directory inside that same directory.

[BBMAN225]

so how do I use it?

[Lorenzo Von Matterhorn]

as you referred, some files are persistent and you can't remove them. replace <directory name> for the directory they are in and manually remove them. after that, you should have a clean installation environment.

[Roney Michael]

@BBMAN225: I'm sorry, but that is all you can do. There is no clean way to excise your win7 OS of IE, so to speak. Try posting your JavaScript issue as a new question. That should get it fixed I guess.

[Pacerier]

Related: ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-antitrust-law‌​s/…