I downloaded the fix Naresh had recommended for completely
uninstalling IE6 but I am still not able to figure out a way to uninstall IE6.
arvind,
It's not clear what you have done, what you are seeing nor even exactly
what you are trying to do. Remember your words have to substitute for
what our eyes might see.
First of all let's be clear that XP will not allow you to uninstall IE6
and leave it uninstalled. The only option that NaresH was trying to give
you was a way to reinstall and repair IE6.
NaresH instructions were reasonably clear--"download the fix" and
"Run the fix". What did you do?
I think that there may be an assumption that .reg files have their
default action of merge. That would allow the merge action to take place
if you selected Open instead of saving it. However, I think that in general
that would be bad practice. How do you know what you are installing and
whether it is applicable to your machine? Better to do a right-click
Save target as, then inspect the file with Notepad, and only then use
RegEdit on it. Even better I think would be that instead of naming this file
with that extension that it should have been named with a .txt extension
and instructions given within the source of the file for how it should be used.
Here is the article that the .reg file is based on and some comments
which I have previously made about it. (They are from a reply to someone
who was actually more interested in repairing IE than intent on removing
it as you seem to be.)
<title>KB318378 - How to Reinstall or Repair Internet Explorer and Outlook Express in Windows XP</title>
but IMO it is still not clear what users of XPsp1 are supposed to do.
Previously I have suggested that perhaps the only thing to do which
would be totally consistent with the information given there would be
to uninstall XPsp1 and then follow the instructions for the XP/IE6
combination (or load IE6sp1 instead.) A second unknown is what
happens to any patches you might have installed. I have assumed
that they should surely be uninstalled automatically (i.e. dependencies
should be uninstalled before their pre-requisites) but if doing it for
myself would probably uninstall them in the reverse order that they
had been applied (JIC).
A useful possible side-effect of uninstalling patches and updates
in the reverse order that they were applied is that if you have a reproducible
problem you can retest after each change. You might get lucky and
not have to go as far as you thought.
Another thing that I have wondered about is could you just ignore step 5
(install IE6) and rely on step 6 (visit Windows Update) to make the right
choice of IE? You might like to test that for us if you are still intent on
"reinstalling IE6".
Another thing that you can do which the article doesn't mention
is that there is a rather dramatic "skill-testing" message that you
can get if you do a reboot before reinstalling IE or visiting WU.
(In fact, I have wondered if people who don't reboot get the full
effect of the "uninstall".) Fortunately, I have had a CD to install from
for this case. I'm not sure what your options would be if you don't have
a local copy. It seems difficult to believe that you would be able to visit
WU but perhaps that is what the Windows Update shortcut in
Control Panel somehow allows.
HTH
Robert Aldwinckle
