Q. How can I remove Internet Explorer (IE) from my Windows Server 2008 R2 (full install) server?

John Savill

November 15, 2010

1 Min Read
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A. If you need to remove IE from a Server 2008 R2 full install server (Server Core doesn't have IE installed), you can use the DISM command. I stress the IE can be very useful and if you just want to stop users from accessing the Internet or stop certain people from running IE, Group Policy might be a better option.

You list all your features using

dism /online /get-features

One of the features is Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64, which you can remove with:

dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:Internet-Explorer-Optional-amd64

You'll see:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
 Version: 6.1.7600.16385

 Image Version: 6.1.7600.16385

 Disabling feature(s)
 \[=====================
100.0%
=====================\]
 The operation completed successfully.
 Restart Windows to complete this operation.
 Do you want to restart the computer now (Y/N)?Y

After the restart, it won't be available. If you need to add it back, replace /disable-feature with /enable-feature in the command above.

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