A quick break away from the norm here.
I recently downloaded and installed Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Vista. Big mistake, it is totally unstable right now and probably should be tested more from such a big corporation, I will not dismiss it but as I cannot use it, will not review it. I will revert back to Firefox until they release a better version. So how does one uninstall it from Vista? In XP, it is simple, go to Add/Remove programs and uninstall as per normal.
It seems Windows Vista does not regard Internet Explorer as a program so when you go to uninstall programs, it is nowhere to be seen, it is in fact, tucked away as an Update. Great, so how do I remove it?
Simple, go to control panel, click on Uninstall Programs, then glance over to your left, you will see “View Installed Updates”, click on this link, then, once it has loaded up, you will see a sub section called Microsoft Windows, you should see Internet Explorer 8 , click on it and then click on the uninstall button. Done.
You’ll need to then restart your PC. After that, download another version such as IE7 or Firefox.
Who says you learn nothing in here!
🙂
(I copied this post into the fuelmyblog blog so sorry if you read it twice!)
This does not work in my XP Sp2. Remove does not show-up in add/remove programs.
Sorry, the instructions are for Vista, for XP, do the following:-
1. Click the Start Button and select Control Panel.
2. Select Add or Remove Programs.
3. Find and select Windows Internet Explorer 8 from the list of available applications.
4. Click the Remove button.
5. Restart your system.
Hope that helps
your solution for XP still doesn’t work. The problem is, the button for “remove” is simply “not there”. A little hard to press it, therefore.
To remove any unwanted programmes like IE 8 Beta, simply go to your back up & restore centre and restore your system to the day before you downloaded the rogue program
@PandaWood – On my XP machine, I click on Windows Internet Explorer and it clearly shows me a “remove” button.
@Ian – That is a harsh solution, one I wouldn’t recommend unless desperate.
It’s not in the updates section of vista either…
I expect betas to crash my computer or make windows temporarily unbootable…I don’t expect them to be permanent.
Fortunately for us, MS decided to release beta 2 without a removal or upgrade tool for beta 1. So many developers with beta 1 will be reformatting simply because MS was too cheap to make a removal tool available. The little developers make removal tools for our programs, why can’t the big company do it? Do they just like the power feeling of seeing us make Windows activation requests with the same OS on the same PC regularly?
get this explorer beta 8 out of this computerfor good damn it !!!
thanks for the help. IE8 sucks… i seem to do more when it should be easier.
u have to click on “INSTALLED ON” for Vista. It’s under Windows Explorer 8 Beta.
I want to uninstall IE8 & go back to IE7. I have tried following the simple steps in the guideline but IE8 Beta is not present in either the Programs installed list or the list of installed updates so I cannot remove it or reinstall IE7 from the website. I can’t even delete IE8 manually & start from scratch as Vista is telling me I “need permission” despite the fact I granted permission, being the only one who uses this laptop!!
Any ideas? Many thanks, Colin
Man You are great! I was struggling with that sh..t for months! I am just realizing it would be a good idea just to google my question from the beginning 🙂 Cheers!
If you still need to remove IE8 – From my blog (TechGeekandMore) I have posted step by step instructions because MS did not make it easy to remove.
http://techgeekandmore.wordpress.com/2009/03/27/uninstalling-internet-explorer-8/