Now that the Internet Explorer 9 beta is available for download, I’ve seen a lot of people asking the question: “If I install the beta and don’t like it, can I easily remove it?”
The answer is YES – removing the beta is easy. I’ve detailed the steps below. But I should also say that I’ve been using the beta since it was released, and I love it! Betas usually aren’t for everyone, but I think this one is rock solid. I’m encouraging all of my family and friends (even the non-techies out there) to install it. Internet Explorer 9 is faster, cleaner, and introduces some really cool new features to make my web browsing experience better than ever. So far my favorite features are support for HTML5, “tear away” tabs (cool!), and built-in recommendations for making your browser faster (IE9 tells you which browser add-ons you might want to consider disabling due to performance reasons).
So to be clear… I have no plans to uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta. But if you have reservations about installing the beta, rest assured that it’s easy to uninstall if you don’t like it.
The steps below show how to uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta using Windows 7. The exact steps may differ slightly on other versions of Windows.
To uninstall the Internet Explorer 9 beta, start by opening the Control Panel:
Next, click on “Uninstall a program”: (on other versions of Windows this might be called “Add/Remove Programs”)
This opens the “Programs and Features” dialog. This is where the uninstallation process is a bit different from the way you uninstall other programs. Since Internet Explorer 9 beta gets installed as an update, you need to click on “View installed updates”:
Finally, select “Windows Internet Explorer 9” from this list and click “Uninstall” at the top of the Programs and Features dialog and follow the prompts:
That’s it! So go ahead – install the beta. As you’ve seen, if you don’t like it, you can easily remove it (but secretly, I think you’ll like it).
Brian Keller, co-author of Professional ALM with Visual Studio 2010
