Remove Internet Explorer in Win 7- what does it break?

[Henry Ramsey]

What exactly does it break when you remove internet explorer from an installation through the remove components part of wintools?

It warns that functions might be damaged but which parts are really damaged?   What is damaged that might not be re-installed when IE11 is installed?

 

I removed IE from an installation of windows 7 x64 Home Premium.  

 

Now I found out that Family Tree Maker needs IE to be installed and uses an embedded version in it's newest version.

So I installed IE11.  It works flawlessly on the surface.  Browses sites, etc, but the FTM 2014 handshakes with ancestry.com

directly and has this embedded browser which is not handshaking to allow access to information that should be available.

 

I went around over 90 minutes with a tech on the phone doing everything including white listing ancestry in internet options.  

No effect. The program is logging in but something is broken somewhere because the link with ancestry is not working though

logging in works. 

 

The only thing I can figure is that removing IE also removed some critical component of IE that wasn't restored on install of IE11.

[bphlpt]

Instead of removing IE then installing IE11, have you tried simply installing IE11 without removing IE first?  I mean, since you need to have IE anyway if you are going to run FTM ...

 

Cheers and Regards

[Kelsenellenelvian]

It looks like it breaks ALLOT,

 

However remember Wintoolkit does not do most removals this way it only tells the system not to install them during installation and is super easy to reinstall that way.

 

One of the main reasons I don't use crap like rt7lite.

[Henry Ramsey]

It looks like it breaks ALLOT,

 

However remember Wintoolkit does not do most removals this way it only tells the system not to install them during installation and is super easy to reinstall that way.

 

One of the main reasons I don't use crap like rt7lite.

OK.  It tells the system to not install IE but there must be something it breaks or might break if it warns before telling to not install it.   Is there a list anywhere of what the consequences are?

[Henry Ramsey]

Instead of removing IE then installing IE11, have you tried simply installing IE11 without removing IE first?  I mean, since you need to have IE anyway if you are going to run FTM ...

 

Cheers and Regards

I already did this removal and have fully installed the system.  

 

I actually built this computer for a friend.  She almost 80 years old. I am her "computer helper".  We needed to go from XP due to the MS countdown.    

Windows 7 was the only option since Linux doesn't support FTM except in crossover and even then it is bronze so that was out due to it having to be tweaked too much.

 

I didn't realize she would have anything that outright required IE.  FTM doesn't say so in their system requirements. Well they didn't when I last checked so they might have changed it by now.

So I checked the box to remove or just not install it in Wintoolkit options along with removing other unneeded stuff like tablet PC stuff and such.

 

Then I went to install FTM2006 and at first and it wouldn't do it unless IE was present.  The only version I can install by that point was IE11.  

So I installed IE11 and all MS updates it triggered.   The FTM2006 worked fine, but there are issues due to it being designed for Windows 98/XP.

 

 

Now she bought and we installed FTM2014 and it's having these 'handshaking' issues with ancestry.com.  

The actual issue is that it won't recognize her installation as being logged in so she can register and access the databases.  

The log in seems to be working, but it's still telling her to activate a trial offer when she already has a subscription.  

The tech from ancestry went through every conceivable item on their checklist to change to try and make it work.

90 minutes on the phone and nothing helped.  The last thing that is possible is that something broke while not installing it during

Win7 install hence my original post.    

 

 

How about windows services?  I check the tweaked windows services option in wintoolkit.  

Does it disable any windows service that might affect background operations within IE?

 

I'm grasping at this to prevent my needing to go back and re-reinstall windows 7.  

She will not be happy to be without her computer again for a couple of days.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

The only thing I can think of is that Win7 comes with ie and since ie8 was never installed (Which you could have done from the add\remove features BEFORE installing ie11) then there may be some missing files and or reg entries.

 

ie8 could have been installed via this:

 

 

Things like this is why nLite\vLite doesn't support corp uses. You made the decision for your client that she may never need ie when, in fact there are ALOT of things ie is needed for the standard user.

 

Now instead of here having a system that can activate her program you have spent many hours and days trying to fix it and will most likely have to do a reinstall.... 

 

Personal note A couple of days for a reinstall? Even without having automated installs or anything a reformatt won't take more that 6-ish hours.... 30-45 minutes for windows maybe 2 hours for apps (Shes 80, she can't need that many) then all of the updates and tweaking for her...

 

p.s. there are downloadable installers for ie9, ie10 step upgrading would have been a better option too.

[bphlpt]

Another thing to keep in mind is that in my experience there are still certain sites that have had various issues with IE11, including WinCert, so I personally still use IE10 and refuse to "upgrade", even though I know many others who use IE11 and then just complain at the sites where there are problems.    FTM might be one of those sites.  If you do end up reinstalling, I would suggest using IE10 with Win 7 unless you need IE11 for some other reason.  Just my two cents.

 

Cheers and Regards

[Henry Ramsey]

The only thing I can think of is that Win7 comes with ie and since ie8 was never installed (Which you could have done from the add\remove features BEFORE installing ie11) then there may be some missing files and or reg entries.

 

ie8 could have been installed via this:

 

Capture.PNG

 

Things like this is why nLite\vLite doesn't support corp uses. You made the decision for your client that she may never need ie when, in fact there are ALOT of things ie is needed for the standard user.

 

Now instead of here having a system that can activate her program you have spent many hours and days trying to fix it and will most likely have to do a reinstall.... 

 

Personal note A couple of days for a reinstall? Even without having automated installs or anything a reformatt won't take more that 6-ish hours.... 30-45 minutes for windows maybe 2 hours for apps (Shes 80, she can't need that many) then all of the updates and tweaking for her...

 

p.s. there are downloadable installers for ie9, ie10 step upgrading would have been a better option too.

 

I didn't think I was fully removing IE.  When I've done this in the past with windows XP I used nLite.  That program was able to remove IE browser, but leave the underpinnings intact.  

From what was said above this is the way it is supposed to work here too.  Evidently not.   I usually leave IE out and so I was following what I have done before.  There was never a problem until now.   I've built three systems including my own that I'm using to type this message and only one has an issue.

 

Yeah, a couple of days is due to my not driving and my friend having to pick me up and have the time to get together.   It's also about scheduling her's and mine.

I'm also busy so we try to schedule things so it's when she is going to be busy and not need the computer.  My friend is almost 80, but she is very busy just the same and

I am too several days per week.  The other thing that takes time is backing up the data.  She has 35GB of pictures alone that I backed up to DVDs.  

The write time after several failures was 30 minutes per disc. Since some of these are very important to her I've taken time to be redundant. I backed up to DVDs AND cloned the old XP install to a second HDD so I could copy the files from that. I was lucky I did.  IMGBurn skipped dozens of 'hidden' files from Picasa.  I had thought they were just duplicated temp files so I let it do so to save space, but found out later they are not. If I had not backed up to both DVD and HDD as well about 200 pictures would have been wiped out.

 

On that note.  I'm going to start over with her computer this weekend. She is going to be busy with family and will not have time to mess with her computer.

I'll backup anything that has changed in her FTM files and pictures to a flash drive and start from scratch.

 

The Family Tree Maker 2006 is also not working right since we did some updates on it.  There were two patches and the second one had almost the exact same symptom as the FTM2014 where it didn't log in correctly though the FTM program to Ancestry.com.   This is either a further symptom of the IE issue I'm suspecting or FTM2014 imports more than just the data files of FTM2006 and therefore caused the issue to parallel to both versions.

 

I suspect that in spite of the Ancestry.com tech's assurances to the contrary FTM2014 uses common DLLs libraries with FTM2006 that have become mixed up or otherwise corrupted in the original update of FTM2006 then new installation of FTM2014. Removing all and re-installing is going to be the only way to be sure this is sorted out right.   She has decided to return for refund FTM2014 since she is unsatisfied with the changed interface.  There are evidently a lot of such customers since they actually have a  process to get a refund by signing a form promising to destroy all copies of FTM2014 under penalty of perjury.

Edited April 9, 2014 by Henry Ramsey