Feb 17 2007

How To Remove/Uninstall Internet Explorer 7

By Jeremy Schoemaker 25 comments »

fun fun fun I just spent the last 30 mins trying to figure out how to uninstall internet explorer 7 from my pc after finding out its incompatable with the few applications I even keep windows around for.

If you try to do it just by going to add/remove software you wont find it. Here is how you have to do it:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click Add or Remove Programs
3. Click Show Updates checkbox
4. Click whatever version of IE7 you have. For example “Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview”
5. Click the Change/Remove button

Bulbboy said on February 17th, 2007 at 7:05 pm

Why everyone doesn’t use FF, I’ll never know.

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ShoeMoney said on February 17th, 2007 at 8:58 pm

unfortunately some apps are dependent on the IE stuff =(

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Cecil S. said on February 17th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

I still keep it to boost my Alexa Ranking though..If FireFox can get the Alexa Toolbar (the legit one which sends them the traffic stats), then my world would be complete

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ShoeMoney said on February 17th, 2007 at 10:30 pm

cec - the search status one updates alexa properly. Check your live headers

http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/

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Farmer said on February 17th, 2007 at 10:59 pm

The only reason why I keep it around is to make sure my sites acutally look good in IE…I hate spending a day coding then realize that I hadn’t checked it in IE all day. End up having to go back and hack it up where I forgot to just so I can make it work…grrr.

Curse IE and everyone that uses it. :p

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Chetan said on February 18th, 2007 at 1:32 am

Thats why people are ecommended to use FF

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Gareth Jax said on February 18th, 2007 at 6:03 am

Yet, you may find useful to have explorer 6 AND 7 on the same machine, because the 7 is doing some serious mess on the css files of many site and templates.
Try this nice “method” to have both of them (even if the 7 is barely functional, but you don’t need the frills to check a layout)

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

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TeesMyBody.com T-Shirts said on February 18th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

3 words - Firefox for life.

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engtech said on February 19th, 2007 at 1:01 am

I’m actually the first site on google for uninstall internet explorer 7 after microsoft and lifehacker
one good hack a user mentioned is that you can still install the ie6 standalone: http://browsers.evolt.org/download.php?/ie/32bit/standalone/ie6eolas_nt.zip

very useful for keeping ie6/ie7 online for testing.

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Matt said on February 19th, 2007 at 1:49 am

i think it’s harder to make sure things work in ff than ie…

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Bashar said on February 19th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

I never cared to remove IE7, I only use it to test some pages, start fresh sessions to see how link behaves, and rarely use IE only sites. Otherwise, It’s Firefox all the way.

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John Loch said on February 22nd, 2007 at 5:05 am

This is so funny..

I spent nearly 40 mins on exactly the same day trying to remove that useless excuse for a browser. And wound up with exactly the same solution..

At least I can say it works..

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Drew Nichols said on February 25th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

Is anyone else extremely annoyed by the new menu system in IE7? That in and of itself is reason to go back to IE6, which was marginally better.

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Nathan said on February 25th, 2007 at 9:54 pm

I actually really like IE7. I think most people are just fan boys who go along the I hate Microsoft crowd.
I like the plugins for FF no doubt… but IE7 is very good.

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ToddW said on February 26th, 2007 at 11:37 am

I use FF for all my browsing but when developing you really need to have FF and IE. I really HATE how FF “fixes” some HTML errors while IE reads-through the code and shows the errors on the screen.

Recently I’ve had a problem with FF displaying the correct menu and IE randomly displaying it correct and other times all spaced oddly.

So, now not only do we have to code for FF, but IE6 AND IE7.

It comes down to the “basic user” uses some version of IE and there are more basic users than advanced (FF) users out there, so coding for FF only is shooting yourself in the foot.

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Gary said on February 27th, 2007 at 11:34 am

this one’s great . . . i’m gonig to have to definitely pass this along to my readers . . . long live firefox!

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Jeremy said on March 9th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

Even better than removing it, use Linux. Then you don’t have to worry about that shitty browser at all. Opera and Firefox knock it out of the park anyway.

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krillz said on April 9th, 2007 at 3:13 pm

hmm isn’t this like public knowledge?
ah no okej hehe

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M-Pire said on October 7th, 2007 at 12:02 am

Not all work so:

HOW TO REMOVE INTERNET EXPLORER 7

Method 1: Use “Add or Remove Programs” to uninstall Internet Explorer 7
Step 1: Use “Add or Remove Programs” to uninstall Internet Explorer 7
a. Click Start, and then click Run.
b. In the Open box, type appwiz.cpl, and then click OK.
c. In the list of programs, click Windows Internet Explorer 7, and then click Remove.
d. Follow the wizard instructions to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.
After you uninstall Internet Explorer 7, double-click the Internet Explorer icon to verify that Internet Explorer 6 is restored.

If you cannot uninstall Internet Explorer 7 by using this method, try Method 2.

Method 2: Use Spuninst.exe to uninstall Internet Explorer 7
Step 1: Make hidden files and hidden folders visible
a. Click Start, and then click My Documents.
b. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
c. Click the View tab.
d. In the Advanced settings list, under Hidden files and folders, click Show hidden files and folders, and then click OK.

Step 2: Run Spuninst.exe to uninstall Internet Explorer 7
a. Click Start, and then click Run.
b. In the Open box, type %windir%\ie7\spuninst\spuninst.exe, and then click OK.
c. Follow the wizard instructions to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.
After you uninstall Internet Explorer 7, double-click the Internet Explorer icon to verify that Internet Explorer 6 is restored.

——————————————————————————–

APPLIES TO
• Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Server 2003 IA64
• Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Server 2003
• Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP

[Reply]
How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 7 said on February 19th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

[...] out the original story, “How To Remove/Uninstall Internet Explorer 7” at [...]
Useful Links #4 | Twenty Steps said on February 22nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm

[...] Ever since I wrote the article about Troubleshooting Internet Explorer 7 I have had tons of traffic to the site. Clearly Microsoft have got some serious problems with their new web browser. As I suggested in a later article, one option is to install Firefox. Another is to uninstall IE7. This isn’t as easy as it sounds to a lot of users so have a look at Shoemoneys 5 Step Guide To Uninstalling IE7. [...]
wildbluffmedia said on February 26th, 2007 at 9:57 am

What OS is this on? I had to work w/ Vista on a new computer (setting it up, etc.) and IE7 crashed within 24hrs of the first time I started up the PC. There was no way to uninstall it or reinstall it. When I went to the microsoft site for it it happily proclaimed, “you’ve already got IE7, you don’t need to download it” and so there was no way to try to reinstall it. I had to end up using the system recovery and resetting the whole machine. (Thanks HP for not including the OS discs).

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wildbluffmedia said on February 26th, 2007 at 9:58 am

Yeah, I’m stuck with IE at work for certain things like our time recording, etc. But the other 99% of the time it’s all FF.

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Protect Yourself & Surf Wisely » Mr. Gary Lee - Observations of an Aspiring Internet Marketeer said on February 27th, 2007 at 12:11 pm

[...] of ShoeMoney.com, I would like to go over the step by step how to start giving yourself a higher quality web surfing [...]
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