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Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

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Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#71

Post by shadowgovt »

quanticle wrote: post #70
nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Was Internet Explorer ever actually a core and critical part of Windows? Sure, Microsoft claimed that it was. But of course, they would have done that, given that the alternative was to admit that the Justice Department's argument was correct, and that Internet Explorer was being bundled…

It's been a long time. I'm trying to remember if they'd rewired things so the Help function actually ran atop the IE rendering agent, or if I'm thinking of MacOSX and Safari.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#72

Post by Asmod4n »

PreInternet01 wrote: post #5

More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most legacy apps should continue to work as-is. On Windows Server platforms, where IE11 is still inexplicably the default experience even in the most recent 2022 editions, you can still enjoy its full functionality, until you explicit…

75% of PCs I had the pleasure today to „patch“ didn’t have IE Mode at all in edge, but still removed IE. Fun times.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#73

Post by shadowgovt »

horsawlarway wrote: post #60
nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

This is a very strange comment. Personally... I absolutely understand exactly how they ended up in this situation. There are actually several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS, the top two easily understood ones are... --- 1. They've put a lot of work into the browser, and they've shared many components of it with other tooling. EX: Internet EXPLORER and EXPLORER the file system browser don't share their…

> Google and Apples's

... and Linux (well, Ubuntu specifically). I'm staring down the need to upgrade from Ubuntu LTS 20.04 to Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because some software I maintain now relies on GLIBC v2.32, which is an absolute bear to back-port. The party line is "So just upgrade," but there's no guarantee my hardware is compatible with Ubuntu LTS 22.04 because the vendor doesn't support that config and I'm not really interested in dealing with all the joys of figuring out every fiddly-widget little config on a laptop to make it work myself.

Microsoft is nearly unique in caring that much about backwards compatibility. It's the value-add they bring to the market these days relative to the competition.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#74

Post by aprilnya »

skc wrote: post #13
athorax wrote: post #7

Take edge with it, please and thank you

What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.

Edge is a great browser, (much better than Chrome), but Microsoft keeps trying to force it onto people, so they start hating it, and rightfully so. If Microsoft wasn’t trying to force it onto people, it would probably be more popular

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#75

Post by CodesInChaos »

quanticle wrote: post #70
nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Was Internet Explorer ever actually a core and critical part of Windows? Sure, Microsoft claimed that it was. But of course, they would have done that, given that the alternative was to admit that the Justice Department's argument was correct, and that Internet Explorer was being bundled…

The webview control based on the internet explorer engine was rather important. Internet Explorer the application less so.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#76

Post by shadowgovt »

michaelt wrote: post #48
nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

> inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS Well, it's kind of explicable: It was at about that time Microsoft rolled out HTML Help, so they needed an HTML rendering engine on every PC to be able to read the documentation. Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they wer…

This is one of the reasons a lot of people see the Microsoft anti-trust suit as a mistake (in that it wasn't based on any sound legal theory, and history has shown that every MS competitor just did what MS did and didn't get smacked for it; essentially, the government stepped on the neck of one private company in an asymmetrical way because the administration at the time didn't like their face.)

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#77

Post by tech234a »

It's a good idea to move away from IE, but it's fairly easy to get around the block. When the Edge prompt comes up, roll over the Edge icon on the taskbar and use the X to close the prompt. Then, click on the IE icon to unminimize the IE window.

Other options include, but are not limited to:

* disabling the IE add-on that triggers the prompt (IEToEdgeBHO): you can disable it via group policy [0] or registry [1] and IE will function as normal, or

* running Internet Explorer without add-ons: iexplore.exe -extoff, or

* opening Internet Options, go to Programs tab, click "Manage add-ons", then clicking "Learn more about toolbars and extensions"

I've also seen other ways of launching IE using VBA or other legacy features. Some of these methods also work on Windows 11.

[0]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-dep..., CLSID: {1FD49718-1D00-4B19-AF5F-070AF6D5D54C}

[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2020/10/23/internet-explorer-users-wi... (the key type is String)

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#78

Post by Zetice »

athorax wrote: post #29
skc wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Edge. Been pleasantly surprised by it myself.

Glad it is working out for you! I already have a browser of choice and would prefer my OS not make those decisions for me.

It's a browser, not a religion, try and keep some perspective here.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#79

Post by aprilnya »

lockhouse wrote: post #54
athorax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad it is working out for you! I already have a browser of choice and would prefer my OS not make those decisions for me.

A web browser is expected and included in every modern desktop and mobile OS I can think of. What is different about Safari on Apple OSes, Chrome on Android and Chromebooks, or Firefox on Linux distros? At least on Windows it is trivially easy to use a different browser and set it as the default.

The difference is that Microsoft doesn’t just give you Edge as the default, they actively try to get you to switch to Edge if you’re using something else, with random notifications, pop-ups in Settings, making it harder to switch to other browsers, making browser links opened by the OS (i.e. search bar, help) open in Edge, etc…
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