Reinstall IE 11 on Windows 2016 STandard

Question

Hi,

The IE11 (iexplore.exe) in one of our Windows 2016 Standard server is missing (perhaps removed, not in Recycle Bin anymore).

How do I reinstall it? This is a standalone server with no connection to the Internet.

I have searched the net but so far, unable to find an installer for it. I Inderstand that going forward Edge will be the defualt browser. But due ti legacy issues, IE11 is still required for this server for now.

Any advise or help on how to go about reinstalling or getting IE11 back on this server?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth are perfectly safe to run. It may be IE11 was removed in some unsupported fashion, or it could be the OS is simply broken. If these do not yield any results then time may be better spent standing up a new one, patch fully and migrate roles / applications over to it.

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

You can follow along here.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/developer/browsers/installation/disable-internet-explorer-windows#method-2---using-optional-features-with-dism-client-and-server-systems

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 3

Thanks DSPatrick for your reply.

I executed "dism /online /Add-Capability /CapabilityName:Browser.InternetExplorer~~~~0.0.11.0" but it returned :

Error: 87
No Windows features were specified on the command line.
Use the /Get-Features option to find the name of the feature in the image and try the command again.

I also executed "dism /online /Get-Features" but do not see Internet Explorer as a Featured Name.

Does this mean that IE can never be reinstalled?

Thanks

Answer 4

Hi DSPatrick,

I am not sure how the executable was removed as I took over this server.

After trying out your suggestions, I can now see "iexplore.exe" but upon execution, it says "Internet Explorer stopped working".

I executed "inetcpl.cpl" to clear the settings but no luck. The error persists.

Should I execute "sfc /scannow" to check for corrupted files? Would executing this be safe and will there be any impact to the server? I would not want to introduce new issues and cause existing applications to fail while trying to fix this IE issue.

Thanks for your patience.

Answer 5

Hi DSPatrick,

Sorry for the late reply.

I have rebooted the server but still IE does not work.

Very likely IE has been removed "Illegally".

We may not want to create a new VM and migrate all the apps to it. Too painful. But still that's a last resort to consider.

Thank you very much for your time, advise and help.

Really appreciate your patience.

Thanks & regards