How to uninstall Internet Explorer 9 if you need to revert to IE 8.

Published: 2011-03-15
Last Updated: 2011-03-15 14:01:33 UTC
by Lenny Zeltser (Version: 1)
4 comment(s)

Performance and security enhancements of Internet Explorer 9 make the browser upgrade worth one's consideration. If you need to rollback to the installation of IE 9 for whatever reason, you shouldn't have any issues. I tested the IE 9 uninstall process to revert a Windows 7 system to when it had Internet Explorer 8 installed.

You can uninstall Internet Explorer 9 by using the "Uninstall a program" applet in Control Panel. Then, select "View installed updates".

Then, select "Windows Internet Explorer 9" from the list and click "Uninstall." After the removal process, Windows will probably prompt you to reboot.

After the reboot, you should have Internet Explorer 8 back in its full glory.

 

-- Lenny Zeltser

Lenny Zeltser leads a security consulting team and teaches how to analyze and combat malware. He is active on Twitter and writes a daily security blog.

 

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Comments

I remember when this was the suggested method for reverting back to IE 7 after an upgrade to IE 8 and while you got IE 7 back on the system you still had a few of the IE 8 settings on the system. I haven't had a chance to do any testing yet but did you confirm that all of the settings for IE 8 were removed from the system after uninstalling the update?
I didn't get a chance to look at the extent to which the browser's settings were retained. It's possible that some of the settings were lost.
Why would anyone want to use IE out side of a sandbox?
Yabbo, IE is sometimes the only supported browser for certain applications. We have a few sites here that flat out do not work in Firefox. Whatever that says about the people who write those sites, it doesn't change that we have to support IE.

But Microsoft really has done a lot to beef up the security in IE and it's come a long way since the dreaded version 6. I worry more about browser plugins, and I unfortunately I have a hard time convincing anyone to use NoScript.

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