There are many reasons that might prompt you to be in a need to reinstall solid software like the Edge Browser. Maybe it doesn’t start at all, works slowly, keeps crashing a lot, and, or it takes ages to load. These issues might appear minor, but if you have Edge browser as the only available browser in the system, you might end up with a bad day indeed.

Microsoft has been known to create near-perfect software in terms of user experience, but with all the changes in updates and all the need to make the software compatible with many devices as possible, this has led to imperfection, or the system might just be having an unknown issue of its own.

Reinstalling software of any sort has always solved many problems, and that is what we are going to look at in this guide. This software, Edge, however, is not as straightforward as most of the software out there, as it is inbuilt into the Windows OS. The Microsoft company also never had an official way of reinstalling it in the first place.

But don’t worry, let us get right into it by using the unofficial methods.

Microsoft Edge is one of the core software inbuilt into Windows 10, and that means there is no direct way of uninstalling it from the operating system.

First, let’s get to understand how to go about uninstalling it:

How to uninstall Microsoft Edge through Windows 10/11 Settings

If it happens that someone has reinstalled the browser previously, by downloading the browser manually, instead of using the Windows updates method, this will definitely be a better method to uninstall the Edge browser.

1. Click on the start button and click start button
2. Go to the settings app to open the settings window
3. Navigate to the “Apps” option and click on it
4. Click on the “Apps and Features” option on the left side
5. Scroll down to Microsoft Edge, and click on it.
6. Under it, you will see two buttons, “Modify” and “Uninstall”
7. Click on the “uninstall” button. If the button appears inactive, you should consider the next method. This mostly applies to versions under development, like beta, dev, or the canary. The stable version, however, will require other methods to uninstall it.

How to uninstall Microsoft Edge with Command Prompt

First, we have to know what version of Microsoft Edge is installed in the system. Open the browser and click on the three dots in the top-right corner.

Scroll down and click on “About Microsoft Edge”.

Write down the version number, as it is, on a piece of paper or just copy it somewhere, so you can paste it later in the follow-up steps.

1. Go back to the Windows search box and type “cmd”
2. You will see a command prompt among the listed items on the left.
3. Tap on it to expand the menu and access more actions below it.
4. Click on “Run as administrator” to open the command prompt as the admin.
5. When the command prompt is powered up, input the following command below: cd%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\Microsoft\Edge\Application\###\Installer
   Remember to replace the ### with the edge version number we noted above.
6. Press ENTER and you will be directed to the installer folder of Microsoft Edge (still inside the command line).
7. Next, input the following command line below: Setup.exe –uninstall –system-level –verbose-logging –force-uninstall
8. Press ENTER. This will automatically uninstall the Microsoft Edge browser in the background.

How to Delete Microsoft Edge by Modifying the MicrosoftEdge.exe Folder

1. Go to the file explorer and navigate to the location below: Local Disk (C:) > Windows > SystemApps.
2. Scroll down and find a folder named: Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe.
   
3. Right-click on the folder, and choose “Properties”.
4. On the pop-up window, select the “Read-only (Only applies to files in folder)” box.
5. Click on the OK button.
6. Now, you should back up this particular folder.
7. Next, open the same folder and delete the following files
8. MicrosoftEdgeCP.exe
9. MicrosoftEdge.exe
10. MicrosoftPdfReader
11. Alternatively, you can choose to rename them so that they cannot be accessible by the browser.

Reinstall Microsoft Edge

If you followed the above steps, Microsoft Edge is now closed. If you are still using it, you should close it before proceeding with the next steps, or else the steps won’t go past some next steps.

1. First open the file explorer
2. Click on the “View” menu at the top of the file explorer menu to display its page
3. Go to the “Hidden items” and check the box
4. Now, go to the address bar of the File Explorer and enter the following path: C:\User\UserName\AppData\Local\Packages
   Note: Replace the username with the actual computer admin username.
5. Locate the folder “Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe”, and delete it. You may also want to back up this folder first before you start deleting it.
   
6. Click on Yes, on all the prompts during the deletion steps, to confirm the actions.
7. Go back to the search menu and type “cmd”.
8. A command prompt will be displayed, click on “Run as Administrator”.
9. Paste the following command below on the command prompt: cd C:\users\UserName
   Note: Remember to replace the “username” with the actual UserName of the computer.
10. Now, type the following command and press ENTER: Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach     {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml” -Verbose}
    

When the activity is finished, you will see the “Operation Completed” alert.

You can now restart the computer, and Microsoft Edge should be working perfectly once again.

Conclusion

Microsoft Edge is the latest web browser by Microsoft, and it is inbuilt into the core of the Windows operating system. The close method next to deleting is reinstalling fresh, through deleting any user data files, and then updating the system or reinstalling the new data files once again.

As Microsoft Corporation is adamant in making the Microsoft browser the default browser on Windows systems, future updates might have a new way of preventing the above steps from being irrelevant.

That said, however, it is not a good idea to push products to users, but at least they don’t prevent the installation of other browsers on their system.