Internet Explorer 8 can be removed from Windows 7

The key question for me (as an enterprise customer) is, will you be able to run IE7 on Win7? That would be convenient and ease the remediation burden required to go to Win7.

You are wrong about why only the executable is removed. As one might imagine there are several components dependent of IE parts (not the Windows OS itself) and as one would expect all those longhorn browsers would stop working because they depend on the engine of IE as well as many serious apps out there.

This is where I’m supposed to say “Shopped”. But I will just laugh at your tag: It’s snowing in hell.

Haha nice tags again: ‘The EU better be satisfied’ xD

And – although I live in a EU participating country (Belgium) – I also think these EU guys are a bit overreacting.

How comes Apple don’t have to remove Safari from Apple Macs but Microsoft have to?

@Dennes

It passes the URL to any browser which is set as the default browser. This functionality hasn’t changed since Windows Vista (If firefox is your default browser in Vista, you can try this out).

This is great news all around. However, for Microsoft to have the kind of PR impact this needs, this removability needs to be extended to the Vista and XP versions of IE8 and IE7! Also, Microsoft must promise to make all future web browsers made by Microsoft with the ability to remove the shell and executeable portions. You can leave behind the rendering engine. At least the most visible portions of IE are gone. This will put a dagger in the heart of the E.U’s anti-trust case.

With all the browsers and removeable storage media, there is no need to tie the browser so tightly into the OS. However, I would have Microsoft leverage this removeable option, with a promise from Apple, Google, other *nix flavors and Cannonical to have Safari, other browsers, and Firefox as removeable components as part of the deal. If Microsoft has to unbundle Internet Explorer, then OS-X, *nix, and Ubuntu has to as well. Fair for one is fair for all.

Turning off a feature s Not removing it. This is not new, it was available in prior operating systems. Again, IE is so thoroughly integrated that removal is probably not possible without loosing important functionality. For Vista to finally allow & recognize my Laserjet 4, I had to make a change in IE.

I should probably restate my view on this since you didn’t get the connection between IE and Windows.

Internet Explorer and Windows both use the same rendering engine for HTML, CSS, et cetera. As a result, even if IE is removed, the “components of IE” are still present. These are still considered a part of IE, except that they’re really not. IE is just an application using a rendering engine. Windows also happens to use this rendering engine for various other tasks within the OS.

IE in Windows is just an application running off an API. With this in mind, it’s no different from Safari on Mac.

ml, you should read Bryant’s post right above yours. IE is just an app running a rendering engine, just like Safari. The rendering engine is native to Windows, and Windows relies on it for any html rendering in Windows outside IE.

What many of you are still not getting is that the EU case is also in part about Microsoft’s strong-arm tactics with OEM computer resellers who are shipping pre-installed Windows with their PCs. OEMs are in effect unable to install any other browser than IE as the default. By doing so they would lose their heavy discounts for OEM licenses. MS has made these deals with OEMs for many years, and it is a clear example of anticompetitive behavior: leveraging a monopoly in one market (operating systems) to get an unfair advantage in another market (web browsers).

However, this article indicates that Windows Update no longer requires IE in Windows 7, and that is definitely a clear improvement. There is no good reason why an OS update should require a web browser to function, that is just an artificial coupling to make IE essential in Windows.

safari is not a part of the system finder, it’s an extension to it.
plus u can get rid of safari by just trashing the application, unlike windows right now where it’s impossible to get rid of running IE as the entire system is build around it unlike Webkit on OS X which is only an APi and not a constantly running part (an advantage of unix over Windows),

Dunno what the fuss is about, XP-SP1 allows removal of IE. But like this feature in Win7 it doesn’t remove the core engine otherwise other MS subsystems such as Help and Document Explorer will not not work,, nor will 3rd party applications that use the core engine to implement their “micro browsers”, e.g. WordWeb, Babylon.

The only reason I keep IE going on XP is because of the 3rd party applications invoke IE for menu items such as “Help->Support Forums”, “Help->Check for New Version” etc; and some invoke IE to bring up their “Report a Bug” page when they detect a program defect. None of these 3rd party applications actually need IE, the reasons publishers use it are a) their lazy MS-centric programmers and b) their pathetic QA processes.

Apparently, many of you don’t understand the U.S. vs Microsoft case. Especially the part concering the browser.

The findings of fact conclude that Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact that Microsoft had abused its monopoly position by attempting to “dissuade Netscape from developing Navigator as a platform”, that it “withheld crucial technical information”, and attempted to reduce Navigator’s usage share by “giving Internet Explorer away and rewarding firms that helped build its usage share” and “excluding Navigator from important distribution channels”. (Source: Wikipedia.)

However, in none of the instances did the court or the Department of Justice ever say to Microsoft, you must remove the web browser from Windows. Besides fines, restitution, along with monitoring Microsoft and its software for anti-trust behavior, Microsoft simply had to furnish information concerning the API’s with third party companies. They had to quit making proprietary API’s that disadvantaged other third party software in retaliation for competing against Microsoft. Also, Microsoft had to allow a technical committee to inspect Microsoft software for compliance.

In none of the instances, did the US court ever tell Microsoft it had to remove Internet Explorer. I believe the re-insertion visibly of the the removal of IE 8 has more to do with stemming the EU’s case. Many U.S. anti-trust experts have been critical of the case. Most anti-trust experts believe the EU is going to far and this IE anti-trust borders on protectionism for Opera and other European based computer and software makers. Since Opera has such an insigificant marketshare for years, its really hard to make the case in 2009 that Microsoft’s behavior since the U.S. DOJ and the original EU anti-trust case against Windows has been harmful to Opera or European Based software companies.

i’m translate to bahasa, thanks

Whiping the executable is all that is really required to do. Last I checked, mshtml.dll, aka Trident, is a RENDERING ENGINE, not an actual browser. Removing it would break too much shit, probably even including the entire .NET framework 2.0, as it’s HTML control relies on it. This would satifiy myself, and as of right now I’m not too damn happy with the software giant.

Also, whoever mentioned Safari, you can remove it, just drag it to the trash. It will still leave the WebKit libraries behind but Cocoa will depend on it, Sherlock will depend on it, any apps you install like Shiira and iCab will rely on it.

Remember: Rendering Engines != Browsers.

Internet Explorer 8 is not the only removable application. Also included is Media Player, Media Center, XPS, and a few other big applications. http://www.osattack.com/windows-7/additional-windows-7-applications-get-un-install-options/

Important Windows 7 no longer supports the ability to modify the registry to get the special Internet Explorer icon to appear on your desktop. This change was made to ensure Internet Explorer could be removed easily for compliance reasons. – Taken from Microsoft Knowledgebase Article number 945402

@Jean-Daniel,

The answer to that question is simple: compatibility and manageability. It would be a pretty bad change for a lot of applications if the rendering components were moved out of the Internet Explorer directory.

In addition, if Microsoft wanted to update files (say, a new version of IE came along with an update to Trident), it would be easier if everything was in one location instead of being scattered between two locations.

thank goodness for the windows 7 blog team releasing this, so you could then claim that you found it, pathetic press seeking person

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/03/06/beta-to-rc-changes-turning-windows-features-on-or-off.aspx

Thanks for that Jason.

@R.J. You do realize that the post on the E7 blog was only made as a result of the postings by Bryant and myself right?

Now, we need to enforce HTML standards on all webpages. Blast those sites that boast “optimized for IE.” Authors who can only write in MS scripts should not be able access to the internet.

I’ll wait to see if the final copy actually wipes all IE parts from the machine or just disables as the dialog box suggests.

@Karl

It’s too bad the Euro is being ditched in exchange for the dollar, isn’t it?

http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/EUR/graph120.html

@Bryant

Not really, the Euro is still stronger, meaning that people are more interested in trading in Europe than the USA. I’d expect the weakness comes from Eastern Europe. Several countries in the region are ready to collapse, and businesses in those countries, expecting to join the Euro, took out foreign currency loans in Euros from banks in Western Europe. Their own currencies have slumped against the Euro, so the repayment sum is now ridiculous and they’re going bankrupt if they don’t get bailed out; their own countries can’t, so they’re looking for help from the EU. This issue is because of irresponsible behaviour on the part of West European banks who were competing with each other to loan to these countries in Euros. It’s bad, certainly, but nothing more than a blip.

Also, the dollar’s gained 0.04 euro cents since January. That’s not really significant.

The important point is that the US has real superpower competition in the form of the EU. The last competition they had (Russia) was a joke that magically managed to keep itself from economic collapse. The EU is such an economic power that it eclipses the US, and it does so whilst providing more benefits to people and in many countries providing free healthcare to everybody.

I’m in the same boat right now, I have a new design just about coded up, except it breaks in IE6. It’ll take about the same amount of time to either fix the display issue or write up a quick downgraded stylesheet for old browsers. I’m still not sure which I’m going to go, but I’m leaning towards the latter.