How to Uninstall IE8 in Windows XP and Windows Vista
Internet Explorer 8 has some nice improvements over Internet Explorer 7, but that said many users have been through crashes and more over time, and may want to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 and continue using the older stable version, as with our tutorial about uninstalling Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer 7 in the past, we would like to continue the trend and show our readers how to uninstall IE8 in Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Uninstall IE8 in Windows XP
Uninstalling IE8 in Windows XP is pretty much simple. Open up the Control Panel and click on Add/Remove Programs. In the listed programs find Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta X (where X would be the beta version you installed) and click on the Remove button.
The uninstall process should remove the IE8 beta version and ask for a restart. Once the PC has restarted you will be reverted to the earlier version of IE.
Uninstall IE8 in Windows Vista
Microsoft has made it a bit trickier to uninstall IE8 in Windows Vista, as it installs IE8 as a update as against a actual program, and the option is not available in the Uninstall Programs option by default. To uninstall IE8 in Windows Vista, open control panel and navigate to the uninstall a program link.
In the left hand side of the applet click on View installed updates to find the option to uninstall IE8.
Once you click on the link, you will see a list of updates that have been installed for Windows Vista and other Microsoft products, the option to uninstall IE8 is clubbed under the group Microsoft Windows, click the text that says Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta X (where X would be the beta version you installed) and click on the Uninstall button on the top.
This should uninstall IE8 and restore the browser to IE7, the default browser for Windows Vista. Your computer will need to be restarted for the uninstall process to be completed.
If you are having trouble uninstalling IE8, feel free to leave a comment or send us your questions using the contact us form.
Clif Sipe
Karthik Prabhu
Pallab De
Harsh Agrawal
Kevin
Sinavlar
Carole
February 6th, 2009 at 8:00 am #
Cannot uninstall Windows Media Player 11 with your instructions. When I click on ‘Remove’, it tells me it will rollback to previous version. I can only remove the WMP security updates, but not the actual player.
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estefan
February 18th, 2009 at 9:42 pm #
i tried that but it’s not listed on installed updates but when i look at update history is shows it installed
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omajust
March 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm #
uninstall ie8 FOR YAHOO
the removal isn’t working– not able to find the program– have my XP searching for Microsoft ie8 with no results– trying again for Microsoft ie 8 for yahoo– we’ll see…
Thanks for the attempt– would like further info if at all possible…..
just don’t like the program– seems to clog up– stops “normal” stuff from working. DID NOT expect this problem of uninstall– NO info I found thru Yahoo, either.
Thanks folks
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estewart
May 20th, 2009 at 5:31 pm #
For me, ie8 would not open any Web site pages. Only a message would show telling me that the page could not be displayed.
I tried reinstalling ie7, but the installer complained that a newer version of ie existed, and would go no further. I have yet to be able to uninstall ie8. Turns out, Service Pack 3 eliminates the ability to UNINSTALL either ie7 or ie8. I saw that the European Union is maybe filing suit about that. Hope so. Anyway… Service Pack 3, according to MS, must be removed to enable the uninstalling of ie7 or ie8. However, the detailed instructions MS provided for removing Service Pack 3 failed to work. So… I am back to dealing with the nastiest “virus” I have ever experienced — not counting those that totally destroyed my computer.
I did see a dangerous method for removing ie8 by editing the registry — which was involved and risky. I decided to only try that last. Well… I’m at that point now. But I lost the link to the extensive instructions. Trying now to find that again. I believe it is now my only recourse.
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Anon
June 7th, 2009 at 6:21 am #
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! I’M SO SICK OF THAT BUG RIDDLED PIECE OF @$^*!#%& !!!
In IE7/Firefox on Vista or XP I never got any crashes, but IE8 on Vista… Damn, it feels like the browser has been through hell and back! When I opened Task Manager with it open, there would be 5-7 iexplore.exe processes. IE7 only had one.
I’m going to uninstall right NOW!!
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