Using nothing more than a simple Command Prompt line

Jul 7, 2020 20:38 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft has been under fire lately for the way it decided to push the new Microsoft Edge browser to users on Windows 10.

Basically, the new Chromium-based Edge browser is offered as a manual download and as an automatic update.

First and foremost, the manual download. Announced in early 2020, Microsoft Edge was originally offered to users who just wanted to download the installer on their devices and deploy the browser on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and macOS.

As far as Windows 10 users were concerned, the manual download option could be used for any version of Edge, including the Canary, Dev, Beta, and stable builds.

The automatic update, on the other hand, landed in early June, causing quite a lot of criticism in the Windows 10 user community.

Showing up on Windows Update and installing automatically on Windows devices, the new Edge replaced the legacy version of the browser, also taking over its pins, shortcuts, bookmarks, and everything else. This was an approach that was supposed to make the transition from the old browser to the new one more seamless for everyone.

On the other hand, Microsoft announced earlier this year that once the new Edge would be offered, it would also become the new default browser on the device if the legacy version was configured this way. In other words, if Edge Legacy was the default browser, the new Edge replaced it automatically. If Chrome or a different browser was used as the default browser, no change occurred.

Now that the Chromium-powered Edge is available via Windows Update, many users are upset that Microsoft more or less forces the switch on them – as a matter of fact, Microsoft itself has also announced a so-called Edge Blocker Toolkit that could be used to prevent the update from being offered on Windows Update. So technically, those who want to block the new Edge from showing up as an automatic download can turn to an official tool for the whole thing.

Once the browser is installed, however, things are getting tricky. The new Edge launches automatically after a reboot, and users complain that some other browser data is automatically imported in the browser without them specifically giving their consent for this thing to happen.

Hello, PowerShell!

Removing Edge, however, isn’t necessarily a very straightforward thing to do, as uninstalling the update received on Windows Update isn’t possible, while the app removal option is missing from the Settings app. But in fact, as discovered recently, you can turn to the Windows PowerShell for this kind of trick.

First and foremost, you need to log in with administrator privileges because otherwise you won’t be able to remove the browser. This is because Edge becomes a native app on Windows 10, so it’s treated as a system file that requires administrator privileges. Then, navigate to the location where it’s installed and then launch a PowerShell window to the location. To do this, right-click in an empty area with Shift pressed on the keyboard and select the option called Open PowerShell window here.

Next, simply copy and paste the following command in the PowerShell screen you just launched:

setup.exe --uninstall --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall

Give it some time to finish after which Edge should no longer be there on your device. A reboot of the system might also be required to complete the removal. What you need to know, however, is that once you remove the browser, it will show up again on Windows Update, so to block it completely and prevent the app from installing, just use the aforementioned toolkit.