Microsoft Edge competed against Google Chrome and Firefox since its introduction in Windows 10, the result is clearly undesirable for Microsoft. Microsoft introduced Edge to replace Internet Explorer and force users to upgrade to Windows 10, however, this caused compatibility issues with Windows 7 (which 60% users are using) and UI changes. Many users still dislike Edge for those reasons, despite Microsoft made huge improvements and added many new features to it.
Last year, Microsoft conducted a survey about why Chrome or Firefox is better and announced future releases of Microsoft Edge will be Chromium base and open source. With this, Windows 7 and 8 users can install Edge and the UI will be similar to Google Chrome. With the development progress now, Chromium-based Edge is only available to 64-bit Windows 10 users but Microsoft announced that Edge will be for Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7 and macOS.
There is a good number of people on Windows 7 excited to try the newest version of Microsoft Edge but it is currently unsure of when it will be officially available. So, here is how to install the newest build of Edge on Windows 7 using the Windows 10 64-bit installer!
HOW TO INSTALL THE LATEST VERSION OF MICROSOFT EDGE ON WINDOWS 7
1. The architecture of your Windows 7
- Understand the fact that Microsoft Edge, for now, is only available in 64-bit (x64 not IA64) architecture.
- Check if you are using 64-bit Windows 7. (Start Menu -> Computer [Right Click] -> Properties -> System type)
- If you have a “64-bit Operating System“, congratulations! You can install Edge now.
- If you have “32-bit Operating System“, sorry you have to wait until Microsoft release 32-bit Edge.
2. Install all updates
3. Go on to Microsoft Edge Insider Channels page
4. Select either “Dev Channel” or ‘Canary Channel” depending on how often you want Edge to be updated. Note: The Beta Channel installer does not yet work but can be downloaded here.
- Beta Channel – Updated every 6 weeks
- Dev Channel – Updated weekly
- Canary Channel – Updated daily
5. Accept the agreement and download.
6. When your download is done, run MicrosoftEdgeSetup.exe you’ve just downloaded.
7. Wait for it to finish, it will first download the files required then install Edge for you.
- Dev Channel will install Edge to %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft
- Canary Channel will install Edge to %LocalAppData%\Microsoft
8. When the installation finishes, Edge will be pinned to your taskbar and added to your desktop and it will be opened automatically.
- Edge will pick up bookmarks and etc. from your other browsers.
- You can choose to sync everything.
9. Depending on which channel you chose, updates will come out either every day or every week. You can check for updates.
10. Done! Enjoy the newest version of Microsoft Edge.
Disclaimer: The official Windows 7 Edge hasn’t come out yet, means you will be installing the Windows 10 version using a Windows 10 installer. Although it works, there are risks associated with it such as losing personal information.