Quote - Can you uninstall IE all together? 

I hate that browser. I use chrome. I haven't uninstalled IE yet but I've been meaning to. It tries to revert my default back to itself every chance it gets. 

 

~Shane

Ahhh, if this was only the win 9x days, the answer would be yes. Shane Brooks 98lite was a godsend. I know he -did- have a tool to remove Exploder for XP, but I'm not sure it's available anymore. How good was 98lite? I've been running my dos box on it for....12 years. The same install. 98SE, with IE, Outlook, &scripting host never installed. The desktop was from Win 95, so no active X controls exposed there, and Windows Explorer was also force mated from 95, so no webpage BS. Fast, stable, and damned near bullet proof to about 95% of the script kiddie garbage out there, as nearly all the common vectors simply aren't there. He couldn't decouple from Vista on due to architecture changes.

The biggest lie M$ ever told was that Exploder was -needed- for software to run or install. All the installers look for are a couple of keys at the top of the registry stack; if it sees them, the installer does its thing. You don't get whatever mshtml front panel included, but functionality defaults back to windows basic button contro (That was one of the nice presents Shane gave the community. A desktop download that inserted the one key that 9x software looked for in the stack. Never had anything try and shove Exploder up my hardware after that, and it all worked...

The way they've rigged things today, anyone who managed it would probably have HSO busting their door down......

As far as Windows issues go, the next biggest lie is that all those updates are =needed=. You have a good AV package, a NAS enabled router, and a firewall set up properly, and you don't need most of those updates (and that assumes you have -already- parsed out the localized updates that only apply to regions and languages). Use a non-integrated browser like Chrome, Opera, Firefox, etc and you have even less need for them. If you have a stable install, that runs fast and treats your software right, then turn the bloody win-update feature =OFF= and forget it even exists. Apps that need specific modules, like a particular C++ runtime, will have a distributable package included and do it automatically, if it determines the module doesn't exist. I never updated XP until SP 2, and that was only needed to run certain software; Vista never updated, Win 7 has never updated, and the Win 8 I have on a renderbox has never updated. And so far, no problems.