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After I made an in-place upgrade of Windows 10, I decided to remove all subfolders whose name start with Edge from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft. 1
This means I also deleted the EdgeWebView directory.

Then I changed my mind and wanted to reinstall the WebView2 Runtime,
so I went to the download section of the WebView2 home page.
In the leftmost part, I downloaded the Evergreen Bootstrapper.

But when I double-clicked it to reinstall WebView2, I got an error message in my local language. Translating into English, it says something like :

The installation failed. Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime has already been installed on this system.

This question is closely related to How to uninstall Microsoft Edge WebView2

References

1 Although there are differences between Windows 10 and Windows 11, there are also a lot of similarities. That's why I've chosen to also include the tag. Of course, this means that I welcome solutions also for Windows 11 – even if they haven't been tried for Windows 10 specifically.
Henke
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1 Answers1

10

How to reinstall Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime

  • Press WinKey+r, type regedit, and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.
    Click Yes if you receive a elevated prompt from 'User Account Control'.

  • Select and copy below string (Ctrl+c) 1
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}

  • Go to Registry Editor address bar, clear it, paste above string and press Enter.

  • Right-click the key {F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5} and choose Export.

    Export the WebView2 registry key.

  • Save the registry file to some place that you'll remember, such as :
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView 2

  • Now delete the key and try running the bootstrap installer again. 3

The above solution should work.
But if you still have access to the EdgeWebView directory (in the Recycle Bin),
it might be even easier to restore it into C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft.
No other actions should be needed.

1 I found the key at [WebView2 Evergreen installer no longer adds the registry key][Link01].

2 You can name it any way you like, as long as you remember what the file is about. I name it :
HKLM%SOFTWARE%WOW6432Node%Microsoft%EdgeUpdate%Clients%{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}.reg
which admittedly is very long, but has the advantage of telling exactly where the key is located in the registry.

3 This solution worked fine on Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 version 23H2.
xypha
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Henke
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