What happens when you uninstall Internet Explorer 8?

It makes itself hard to reinstall itself. The install program looks at registry and decides, “heck, I’m already installed.”

At least that’s happened when I had to reinstall it via Microsoft SMS. Perhaps it’s a feature of using a Corporate IE8 install (via IEAK).

Here are the registry keys it leaves behind:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\8A653C7C0B669A246B8B25E4B1444325

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\UpgradeCodes\8988913259C9CB34697403EA2CD10D97

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\ S-1-5-18\Products\8A653C7C0B669A246B8B25E4B1444325

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UpgradeCodes\ 84AAB8E17B4FE3244884F5CFCD1110B9

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UpgradeCodes\ 8988913259C9CB34697403EA2CD10D97

And the GUID of this key may/will change:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{C7C356A8-66B0-42A9-B6B8-524E1B443452}