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Somewhat related: I removed Edge a few years ago because I didn't use it and thought it's just a regular application. A recent Windows update however just would

Somewhat related: I removed Edge a few years ago because I didn't use it and thought it's just a regular application. A recent Windows update however just wouldn't install: Every time it would abort and roll back the update installation just after the reboot, reporting one of those mysterious and very helpful Windows Update error codes. After a few days of scratching my head I found out that due to a bug, that specific update [1] can't be installed unless Edge is installed (prior to the update). IIRC the reason is that helpfully Windows installs the lastest Edge version for you during the OS update, so that "you can experience the fastest web browser, Microsoft Edge!" (or something like that, you know the drill. Nowadays it's not even supported to remove Edge since - according to certain Windows news outlets - Edge is somehow integrated into Windows 10 so by removing it you could break the OS. (Just why??) The aforementioned news outlets also ask why you would ever want to remove Edge - "Have you tried the new Edge browser? It's quite fast nowadays!" To clarify: I am not opposed to Edge itself in any way, but the whole "Why would you ever want to do that?" rubs me the wrong way. Another "Why would you ever want to do that?" story: IIRC, in Windows 8 there was a semi-official way to place your home directory on a different drive than your system directory. Back then I had a 128 GB SSD I wanted to use as a system drive for Windows, but because my downloads folder quickly accumulates a lot of baggage (> 50 GB) I wanted to place it on another drive. A few years down the road the upgrade to Windows 10 failed with a mysterious error code. Again, after a few days of scratching my head I found out that my setup (with the home directory on another drive) is not supported for the Windows 8.1 to 10 upgrade. Common Windows news outlets and forums also commented this issue along the lines of "Why would you ever place your home directory on another drive?" I guess I was too spoiled with the UNIX way (of separate mount points inside a unified hierarchy) to see the error in my ways... (/s) [1] Sorry, I don't remember the specific error code or update number anymore. Perhaps the 2004 update?

LorenPechtel 5y ago
They got slammed by anti-trust over integrating Explorer before. They should be slammed 10x as hard over this.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  The difference is that IE/Edge no longer dominates the market. There is a fair competition between browsers now, so there is no need for an anti-trust lawsuit. Or if there is, it should be against Google.
  - plushpuffin 5y ago
    Microsoft got in trouble for bundling, that is, using their Windows monopoly to unfairly advantage IE over Netscape. They still arguably have a monopoly position on the desktop and they're using the exact same tactics they used in the 90s, so yes they should get in trouble for this all over again.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Wasn't the issue that Windows dominated the desktop OS market, which they used to push their own browser, not that IE dominated the browser market? And the former is still true.
  - LorenPechtel 5y ago
    Microsoft is still using it's near-monopoly position on the desktop to push it's browser. Exactly the same thing it was slammed for before.
TonyTrapp 5y ago
> Edge is somehow integrated into Windows 10 so by removing it you could break the OS. (Just why??) One technical reason is probably that the majority of it - the engine - is also what drives Webview2 (a web view that you can embed into your applications just like you could embed IE into your applications).
- KeepFlying 5y ago
  That's probably the case but then windows should just force webview2 to be its own package independent from Edge's main browser UI. Or better yet, build the Edge browser so that it's actually an app using webview2 to help ensure that webview2 has a great API experience and is actually easy to use.
bmlzootown 5y ago
I went so far as to delete the installation directories of any versions of Edge that I could find. Nothing appears to be broken, and I haven't really had to deal with it since (other than random updates seemingly reinstalling it, so I just remove the directories again).
vel0city 5y ago
> I guess I was too spoiled with the UNIX way (of separate mount points inside a unified hierarchy) to see the error in my ways... (/s) FWIW it's totally possible to mount a volume at a folder location instead of assigning a drive letter, so you actually can mount a separate drive at C:\Users separate from the rest of C:\ or whatever your system drive letter is.
riversflow 5y ago
>After a few days of scratching my head I found out that due to a bug, that specific update [1] can't be installed unless Edge is installed (prior to the update). Holy cow, thank you so much! Pretty sure it was updating from 20H1 KB5003214. I was stuck on that one. I've been having this exact problem, which is pretty annoying because of the combination of how easy it is to accidentally update and that "undoing changes" takes about 3x longer than the update itself. Looking at "Installed Updates" after the fact it says that it pushed through KB5004331 in mid August, but I kinda don't believe that, as it has been continually giving me this BS; it literally happened last night. Installing Edge just now fixed it. I only really use Windows for leisure, so I was lamenting having to deal with a reinstall, which was what I was reading was the needed course of action.
hulitu 5y ago
From Win 95 was always the case that IE/Edge is an integral part of Windows.
iggldiggl 5y ago
> Another "Why would you ever want to do that?" story: IIRC, in Windows 8 there was a semi-official way to place your home directory on a different drive than your system directory. Back then I had a 128 GB SSD I wanted to use as a system drive for Windows, but because my downloads folder quickly accumulates a lot of baggage (> 50 GB) I wanted to place it on another drive. A few years down the road the upgrade to Windows 10 failed with a mysterious error code. Again, after a few days of scratching my head I found out that my setup (with the home directory on another drive) is not supported for the Windows 8.1 to 10 upgrade. That bit was eventually fixed – while I had to move the ProgramData folder back to C:, I successfully upgraded from 7 directly to 10 with my home directory on a different drive. Although yes, it's apparently still not officially supported – supposedly it breaks installation of apps from the store (but so far, I don't really care about the store anyway), and somewhat more annoyingly, I suspect that during major OS upgrades some misguided migration routine that is hardcoded to C: gets to run, because at least twice now I've noticed file paths in the registry being rewritten to suddenly point to C:\Users, when they actually need to point to D:\Users.
- fomine3 5y ago
  For GP's case, they should just move Download directory to D: that is officially supported by GUI, rather than move entire %HOME% to D:.

LorenPechtel 5y ago

They got slammed by anti-trust over integrating Explorer before. They should be slammed 10x as hard over this.

GuB-42 5y ago
The difference is that IE/Edge no longer dominates the market. There is a fair competition between browsers now, so there is no need for an anti-trust lawsuit. Or if there is, it should be against Google.
- plushpuffin 5y ago
  Microsoft got in trouble for bundling, that is, using their Windows monopoly to unfairly advantage IE over Netscape. They still arguably have a monopoly position on the desktop and they're using the exact same tactics they used in the 90s, so yes they should get in trouble for this all over again.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Wasn't the issue that Windows dominated the desktop OS market, which they used to push their own browser, not that IE dominated the browser market? And the former is still true.
- LorenPechtel 5y ago
  Microsoft is still using it's near-monopoly position on the desktop to push it's browser. Exactly the same thing it was slammed for before.

TonyTrapp 5y ago

> Edge is somehow integrated into Windows 10 so by removing it you could break the OS. (Just why??) One technical reason is probably that the majority of it - the engine - is also what drives Webview2 (a web view that you can embed into your applications just like you could embed IE into your applications).

KeepFlying 5y ago
That's probably the case but then windows should just force webview2 to be its own package independent from Edge's main browser UI. Or better yet, build the Edge browser so that it's actually an app using webview2 to help ensure that webview2 has a great API experience and is actually easy to use.

bmlzootown 5y ago

I went so far as to delete the installation directories of any versions of Edge that I could find. Nothing appears to be broken, and I haven't really had to deal with it since (other than random updates seemingly reinstalling it, so I just remove the directories again).

vel0city 5y ago

> I guess I was too spoiled with the UNIX way (of separate mount points inside a unified hierarchy) to see the error in my ways... (/s) FWIW it's totally possible to mount a volume at a folder location instead of assigning a drive letter, so you actually can mount a separate drive at C:\Users separate from the rest of C:\ or whatever your system drive letter is.

riversflow 5y ago

>After a few days of scratching my head I found out that due to a bug, that specific update [1] can't be installed unless Edge is installed (prior to the update). Holy cow, thank you so much! Pretty sure it was updating from 20H1 KB5003214. I was stuck on that one. I've been having this exact problem, which is pretty annoying because of the combination of how easy it is to accidentally update and that "undoing changes" takes about 3x longer than the update itself. Looking at "Installed Updates" after the fact it says that it pushed through KB5004331 in mid August, but I kinda don't believe that, as it has been continually giving me this BS; it literally happened last night. Installing Edge just now fixed it. I only really use Windows for leisure, so I was lamenting having to deal with a reinstall, which was what I was reading was the needed course of action.

hulitu 5y ago

From Win 95 was always the case that IE/Edge is an integral part of Windows.

iggldiggl 5y ago

> Another "Why would you ever want to do that?" story: IIRC, in Windows 8 there was a semi-official way to place your home directory on a different drive than your system directory. Back then I had a 128 GB SSD I wanted to use as a system drive for Windows, but because my downloads folder quickly accumulates a lot of baggage (> 50 GB) I wanted to place it on another drive. A few years down the road the upgrade to Windows 10 failed with a mysterious error code. Again, after a few days of scratching my head I found out that my setup (with the home directory on another drive) is not supported for the Windows 8.1 to 10 upgrade. That bit was eventually fixed – while I had to move the ProgramData folder back to C:, I successfully upgraded from 7 directly to 10 with my home directory on a different drive. Although yes, it's apparently still not officially supported – supposedly it breaks installation of apps from the store (but so far, I don't really care about the store anyway), and somewhat more annoyingly, I suspect that during major OS upgrades some misguided migration routine that is hardcoded to C: gets to run, because at least twice now I've noticed file paths in the registry being rewritten to suddenly point to C:\Users, when they actually need to point to D:\Users.

fomine3 5y ago
For GP's case, they should just move Download directory to D: that is officially supported by GUI, rather than move entire %HOME% to D:.