How to remove MS Edge and Chat Button from Desktop and Taskbar?

Question

Hello,

We have created a Sysprep image, but after Sysprep, we saw "Edge" both on Desktop and Taskbar, and beside this "Chat" button in Taskbar. However they were not in Audit Mode.
Just in case, in Audit mode, we have uninstalled MS Edge, created sysprep, but after sysprep, Edge icon is again there, when I click on it, it says this program is not available.

How can I remove MS Edge both on Desktop and taskbar, and also Chat in Taskbar for all users?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I also had my fight with that and ended up with a workaround that prevents that "Microsoft Edge" from appearing again on the desktop/taskbar again. Regarding the "Chat" button ("Meet now"?) I didn't find out how to get rid of that. However, there is something that might also work for you regarding the "Microsoft Edge" icons on desktop and taskbar (note that this is just a workaround that worked in my case on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC (Version 21H2).

I'm not sure if this is a pure Sysprep issue - I monitored all locations where start menu shortcuts usually appear (users profiles, \ProgramData), but "Microsoft Edge" icons were only created once the user logged i

First of all there are recommendations telling not to attempt to uninstall MS Edge entirely (yes, this is possible), researches in the web took me to communities claiming that there might be dependencies in some O/S components (I didn't tried to find out what this mean in detail). You might also have no-ticed that removing the "Microsoft Edge" shortcut from the start menu is not that easy: You might right click it to find the location, but even if the file is removed, the "Microsoft Edge" entry remains in the start menu (without an icon). Clicking this entry launches Edge, and the icons in start menu, desktop and taskbar will be recreated again.

Starting from the point where icons are located on desktop, taskbar and start menu, I did following:

1. Remove desktop "Microsoft Edge" icon by simply deleting it as you will do it with other files (<Shift>+<Del>)
2. Right-click the "Microsoft Edge" icon in the taskbar and select the "Unpin from taskbar" option from the menu
3. Right-click the "Microsoft Edge" icon in the start menu -> Chosse "More ..." -> Choose "Open file location"
4. Move the "Microsoft Edge" icon to one of the sub-directories, e.g. "Windows Accessories" (within the User's profile's start menu entries

After doing so I could sysprep my image as usual and the "Microsoft Edge" icons did not appear on desktop or taskbar any more.
Hope this helps somebody out there.

Regards,
Willy K

P.S.: If you're looking for a way to keep your favorite browser the default browser, take a look DISM's Export-DefaultAppAssociations / Import-DefaultAppAssociations commands ;-)