Have you ever used a cookie cleaner and been told you need to close Edge? Maybe you had to force it close so that a cookie cleaner could proceed to wipe internet tracks that don't exist because you don't even use Edge. Perhaps you have tried to remove it and have witnessed the build becoming unstable? Or maybe you've killed the process somehow in task manager or a firewall and after updating Windows found it running in the background yet again. Well I'm going to show you how to safely disable Edge.
Open Task Manager.
Click "More details" at the bottom of the Task Manager window, click on it to show more details.
Look for "Microsoft Edge". If you find it in the list, right click on it and select "End task".
Note: If you did not find it running in the background that doesn't mean it doesn't run in the background, only that it wasn't running currently. Continue to the next step.
Go to the folder "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe" and rename that folder to anything you wish. (It's nice append some text to it like "_remove" so I can easily re-enable Edge in the future if I desire.)Edge should now be "disabled". Try using it if you want to confirm.
Microsoft to my knowledge can revert the folder back to the original file name and thus re-enabling Edge during the anniversary update, but just repeat the above steps.
Note:
If you PC doesn't allow you to change the name of the folder you don't have administrator privileges. Take ownership of the folder or right click on MicrosoftEdge file then Properties / Security / Advanced / click change (next to owner) and change to your username, then click Ok. After that click Edit, then add your username and give full permissions.
Open Task Manager.
Click "More details" at the bottom of the Task Manager window, click on it to show more details.
Look for "Microsoft Edge". If you find it in the list, right click on it and select "End task".
Note: If you did not find it running in the background that doesn't mean it doesn't run in the background, only that it wasn't running currently. Continue to the next step.
Go to the folder "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe" and rename that folder to anything you wish. (It's nice append some text to it like "_remove" so I can easily re-enable Edge in the future if I desire.)Edge should now be "disabled". Try using it if you want to confirm.
Microsoft to my knowledge can revert the folder back to the original file name and thus re-enabling Edge during the anniversary update, but just repeat the above steps.
Note:
If you PC doesn't allow you to change the name of the folder you don't have administrator privileges. Take ownership of the folder or right click on MicrosoftEdge file then Properties / Security / Advanced / click change (next to owner) and change to your username, then click Ok. After that click Edit, then add your username and give full permissions.
