How To Uninstall IE8 Beta 2
So you have tried Internet Explorer 8 and are not happy with it. Next thing is to remove it and switch back to IE7 or maybe FireFox. Installing IE8 is not a problem, simply download it from the Microsoft site and install it. But is removal of IE8 just as easy?
The normal IE8 uninstall
Normally you can uninstall software through the Control Panel. The Add or Remove Programs section should contain an entry for “Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2”. If this is the case, you can simply select it and click the Remove button.
Uninstalling IE8 manually
If the entry does not exist, you can try to locate the Internet Explorer 8 update on disk and run the uninstaller. This is a bit tricky since the folder names are not that intuitive. Look in your Windows folder, and open the “ie8” folder. Most likely it is hidden, so make sure you enable the Windows explorer to show hidden files.
In the “ie8” folder there is a subdirectory called “spuninst”. Open that folder and then double-click a file called “spuninst.exe”.
This will start the IE8 uninstaller wizard.
Click Next and wait for the Windows Internet Explorer 8 Removal Wizard to uninstall IE8 from your computer. Depending on your system this can take a little time…
Of course this requires a restart in Windows XP, so click Finish when the wizard shows the screen below.
Once complete, you should be back at your previous version of Internet Explorer.
Uninstall IE8 from Vista
In Windows Vista, you should also be able to uninstall Internet Explorer 8 from the Control Panel. Select Uninstall a program under Programs, and then make sure you select View installed updates in the Tasks pane on the left. This is the catch, IE8 is listed under updates rather than as a regular program.
After this, the “Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2″ entry can be right-clicked, after which you can select Uninstall in the popup.
Microsoft also offers another way to unsinstall IE8 from Vista. Start a command prompt in administrator mode (type cmd.exe in the search box of the Start menu, then right-click it and in the popup menu select Run as administrator).
In the command prompt type:
FORFILES /P %WINDIR%\servicing\Packages /M Microsoft-Windows-InternetExplorer-8*.mum /c “cmd /c echo Uninstalling package @fname && start /w pkgmgr /up:@fname /norestart”
It is better to copy the text and past it in the command prompt. Then press Enter.
Wait for the IE8 uninstall to complete and then reboot the computer.
Uninstall IE8 Using Perfect Uninstaller
Next to the manual uninstall of IE8, you can also opt to use an uninstall program. We prefer Perfect Uninstaller because the software vendor will basically add any program that does not uninstall with the program. IE8 was also added as a special uninstall to the program
When you install the program and run it, simply select the Special Uninstall option in the main screen, and select Internet Explorer 8.0 in the Application list of the Special Uninstall Wizard.
Then click the Next button and follow the further on screen instruction. A reboot is required at the end.
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