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I have a severe hate for Edge webview2 runtime.

I have spent countless hours figure out how to uninstall it.

Today, I noticed my uninstall script (that I run multiple times a day..) doesn't work any more.

The "uninstall" button is also greyed out.

Any ideas?

Here is how I'd usually uninstall via CLI:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView\Application\116.0.1938.69\Installer"
setup.exe --uninstall --msedgewebview --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall

And here it is in the Uninstall Apps UI:

enter image description here

Any ideas how I force this to uninstall?

FreeSoftwareServers
  • 1,486

2 Answers2

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I basically figured out if I "bork" the directory then it doesn't work, which is fine for my use case/same as uninstalling.

Here is my scripted version of what I did:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView\Application\1*\"
del /s /q "*" 2>nul
FreeSoftwareServers
  • 1,486
-1

Unfortunately, this script may not work anymore. We might have circumvented guards against uninstalling Edge/WebView2 Runtime in the past, but this has been hardened recently. It is applied to both Windows 10 and Windows 11 (mostly because they are pre-installed with WebView2 Runtime).

Anyway, this is not recommended as WebView2 is a required component and if removed, product functionality in some apps like Outlook will be affected.

Relevant articles

Windows 10: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2022/12/14/delivering-microsoft-edge-webview2-runtime-to-managed-windows-10-devices/

Windows 11: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/concepts/distribution#the-evergreen-runtime-distribution-mode

Microsoft Edge WebView2 and Microsoft 365 Apps: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/webview2-install