Solved Programmatic Edge uninstall?

Berton said:

What I see in removal of Edge is that being part of Windows it may get reinstalled at the next Version Upgrade or maybe during a Build update, sort of a Default thing.

There's program installations that may still need the browser and refer to Internet Explorer to which end Windows still has an iexplore.exe file that calls Edge to provide the support the programs need, not finding that support may cause the program installs to fail. Putting iexplore.exe in the Run box will do that.

But since we only buy a license to use Windows it's just something to live with if we want to use the OS.

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FreeBooter said:

Microsoft has made it very difficult to uninstall Edge browser, but using an open-source tool you can still manage to uninstall Edge browser from your system.

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DataGoblin said:

I am confused why programmatic attempts to do so are blocked by Windows.

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FirasKing Air said:

<snipped>

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pseymour said:

If I were the sort of person to attack a Windows machine (don't read anything into that), one of the many things I would do is hamper web browsing.

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DataGoblin said:

Versions: Windows 11 23H2 22631, Windows 11 24H2 26100

Problem:

I appreciate that there are a lot of resources on the removal of Microsoft Edge and I have scooted around the internet quite a bit for my use case to no avail.

During my installation I have a script that modifies IntegratedServicesRegionPolicySet.json in System32 to enable Edge to be uninstallable for all countries. This works as intended, when the setup is complete, I can manually select uninstall and remove Edge.

The problem I am facing is I can not seem to remove Edge programmatically at all, no matter what I try.

Solutions Attempted:

I have tried all the commands below, along with a plethora of variations.

Powershell:

cmd.exe /c "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" --uninstall --force-uninstall (and all other tacks I found)

Get-Package -Name 'Microsoft Edge' | Uninstall-Package -force

Start-Process "C:\Windows\System32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList '/uninstall {56EB18F8-B008-4CBD-B6D2-8C97FE7E9062} /quiet /qn /l*v' -Wait
Start-Process "C:\Windows\System32\msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList '/uninstall {FCC74B77-EC3E-4DD8-A80B-008A702075A9} /quiet /qn' -Wait

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\129.0.2792.52\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall --msedge --channel=stable --system-level --verbose-logging

I have also tried adding the NoRemove registry value to keys such as
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Microsoft Edge

I have tested with all Edge related services stopped and started.

Extra Notes:
The default uninstall string does not seem to do anything when executed in CMD or PowerShell.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\129.0.2792.52\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall --msedge --channel=stable --system-level --verbose-logging

I used Sysinternals Process Explorer to derive the command below which seems to execute once the above command is ran
This command does execute as expected and gives the same popup as below.
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\129.0.2792.52\Installer\setup.exe" --uninstall


When doing the uninstall manually via the setting app, I get this pop-up, which I assume this is apart of the problem.

View attachment 109610


If anyone has any insight on how to fix this problem I would be grateful!

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glasskuter said:

You better have a system image handy before you start, because you're treading on dangerous ground in trying to remove Edge. Too many of Windows components are tied to it. I promise you that you will be left with other issues if you mess with it.
Makes more sense to me to just not use it. But then, I'm not on a rampage to thwart Microsoft.

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