How do I uninstall IE 8

[Neil Davis]

Backstory:
I'm a professional developer. I was in need of a firebug-like tool for IE
for tracing errors in javascript, so I can functionally debug things in this
browser without installing Visual Studio and paying $700 for a javascript
debugger. My IT guy suggested that I download and install IE8 because it has
such a tool and is capable of IE7 emulation.

Result:
Very very very bad idea. CSS and javascript are completely broken in this
browser, especially for Google Maps, which I happen to be developing code
for. No problem I go for uninstall... didn't work. Next I go for System
Restore, which restored IE sort of...

The windows are now chromeless (no menus) and it can't load most pages. As
well the internet settings control panel applet simply doesn't start. I get
an hourglass and then nothing. No errors or messages.

I reinstall IE7. Same deal, nothing's changed. When loading most pages IE7
simply crashes.

Does anyone know how to properly uninstall and reinstall the browser? I've
heard it's so embedded in the OS that it's impossible to remove. I'm
primarily a unix/linux person who does C, java, php (and all the related
stuff)coding, and can't fathom why a browser is so closely tied to the system
that to reinstall it you need to reinstall the whole OS.

I'm asking for help here because I've been told this by the same "experts"
that got me into this mess, and really honestly don't believe it. Tell me it
ain't so...

-Neil

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

IE8 Beta Newsgroups.

In Your Newsreader:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.internetexplorer.beta

In The Web Interface:
http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...spx?dg=microsoft.public.internetexplorer.beta

: Backstory:
: I'm a professional developer. I was in need of a firebug-like tool for IE
: for tracing errors in javascript, so I can functionally debug things in
this
: browser without installing Visual Studio and paying $700 for a javascript
: debugger. My IT guy suggested that I download and install IE8 because it
has
: such a tool and is capable of IE7 emulation.
:
: Result:
: Very very very bad idea. CSS and javascript are completely broken in this
: browser, especially for Google Maps, which I happen to be developing code
: for. No problem I go for uninstall... didn't work. Next I go for System
: Restore, which restored IE sort of...
:
: The windows are now chromeless (no menus) and it can't load most pages. As
: well the internet settings control panel applet simply doesn't start. I
get
: an hourglass and then nothing. No errors or messages.
:
: I reinstall IE7. Same deal, nothing's changed. When loading most pages IE7
: simply crashes.
:
: Does anyone know how to properly uninstall and reinstall the browser? I've
: heard it's so embedded in the OS that it's impossible to remove. I'm
: primarily a unix/linux person who does C, java, php (and all the related
: stuff)coding, and can't fathom why a browser is so closely tied to the
system
: that to reinstall it you need to reinstall the whole OS.
:
: I'm asking for help here because I've been told this by the same "experts"
: that got me into this mess, and really honestly don't believe it. Tell me
it
: ain't so...
:
: -Neil

 

[VanguardLH]

in

Backstory:
I'm a professional developer. I was in need of a firebug-like tool for IE
for tracing errors in javascript, so I can functionally debug things in this
browser without installing Visual Studio and paying $700 for a javascript
debugger. My IT guy suggested that I download and install IE8 because it has
such a tool and is capable of IE7 emulation.

Result:
Very very very bad idea. CSS and javascript are completely broken in this
browser, especially for Google Maps, which I happen to be developing code
for. No problem I go for uninstall... didn't work. Next I go for System
Restore, which restored IE sort of...

The windows are now chromeless (no menus) and it can't load most pages. As
well the internet settings control panel applet simply doesn't start. I get
an hourglass and then nothing. No errors or messages.

I reinstall IE7. Same deal, nothing's changed. When loading most pages IE7
simply crashes.

Does anyone know how to properly uninstall and reinstall the browser? I've
heard it's so embedded in the OS that it's impossible to remove. I'm
primarily a unix/linux person who does C, java, php (and all the related
stuff)coding, and can't fathom why a browser is so closely tied to the system
that to reinstall it you need to reinstall the whole OS.

I'm asking for help here because I've been told this by the same "experts"
that got me into this mess, and really honestly don't believe it. Tell me it
ain't so...

-Neil

If you were a developer, you would know that System Restore is not an
image restore. You would also be doing system backups on a periodic
interval to protect your investment in your time and protect your code.
So restore from your backups. Logical backups might not get you back to
the same state and why image (sector) backups are needed for state
recovery. Of course, using a sandbox, like a virtual machine, works
very well for testing purposes. VMWare Server is free (and better than
Virtual PC which is also free). It sounds like Windows is not a well
understood development platform to you; however, even on UNIX, backups
are a necessity. Even CVS or whatever you use to manage your source
code versioning needs to be backed up.

Many users have successfully uninstalled IE v8 so it is probably that
your Windows environment is polluted in a manner that is sensitive to
the uninstall. Development platforms are often in unstable states. At
this point, an in-place upgrade (repair) install might be your only
recovery avenue. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315341, method 2.

 

[Neil Davis]

If you were a *windows* developer
there all fixed. I don't develop on this platform, I'm just a user as far
as MS products go. The last windows OS training I had was Windows NT 4.0 in
1995. Back then System Restore wasn't invented yet.

I got a job developing on UNIX back then and have been developing on
UNIX/Linux/BSD systems ever since. Knowledge of how system restore works,
isn't exactly something I need to know to do my job. If it were, I wouldn't
be here.

If you want to talk about network socket programming on a UNIX, or how to
properly build apache from source, I got your back. Dealing with Windows OS
SNAFU, not so much. I'm no hater, just uninterested. If it wasn't for the
need of supporting IE, windows wouldn't even be a part of my life.

Believe it or not, specialized knowledge of how to fix broken windows
installations, isn't something I usually need. I know it's hard to imagine
when you eat, breathe, and crap MS, but non MS developers do in fact exist.

-Neil

 

[VanguardLH]

in

there all fixed. I don't develop on this platform, I'm just a user as far
as MS products go. The last windows OS training I had was Windows NT 4.0 in
1995. Back then System Restore wasn't invented yet.

I got a job developing on UNIX back then and have been developing on
UNIX/Linux/BSD systems ever since. Knowledge of how system restore works,
isn't exactly something I need to know to do my job. If it were, I wouldn't
be here.

If you want to talk about network socket programming on a UNIX, or how to
properly build apache from source, I got your back. Dealing with Windows OS
SNAFU, not so much. I'm no hater, just uninterested. If it wasn't for the
need of supporting IE, windows wouldn't even be a part of my life.

Believe it or not, specialized knowledge of how to fix broken windows
installations, isn't something I usually need. I know it's hard to imagine
when you eat, breathe, and crap MS, but non MS developers do in fact exist.

And I test on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Redhat, and SuSE. Drives die or a
new program causes bootup failures. Hence backups are still a
requirement on UNIX, too. Some enterprise backup programs provide a
bare metal restore that will work from logical file backups; otherwise,
saving images or using virtual machines provides restore protection. In
fact, some programs that I test have a nasty habit of killing an OS if
improperly uninstalled and it takes too long to get into the lab to get
at the console to recover the system, or have to call the IT folks
(since the host is still their property) to reimage or resetup the host,
so using VMs with snap restore are very handy, and we can even use Perl
with the API available in VMWare.