Metro IE is aimed at touch screen devices and has been set as the default browser in metro environment and IE10 version on desktop obviously becomes the default browser. It is really annoying that when we open links in metro apps they will open in metro IE where we want them to open in internet Explorer (desktop version) instead (read more about this below) is there is a way so that we can completely disable metro IE in windows 8? not completely but we can make metro IE browser to never appear again, see how to achieve this below.
Ways to Disable Metro IE in Windows 8
One thing pretty clear, if Internet Explorer is not the default browser in Windows 8 then Metro IE will be disabled, we’ve covered that how we can do that by setting Firefox as default browser. What if you want to disable only metro IE and want to use Desktop IE as default browser, this post is written for that purpose.
Set IE 10 on desktop to always open the links
By default Internet Explorer decides how to open links in Windows 8, for e.g if you click on a link from a desktop app it will be open in desktop Internet Explorer version and clicking on a link in metro app will be opened in metro IE. However you can change this behavior so that, you can set Internet Explorer on desktop always to open the links.
Open Internet Explorer options>Programs>Under Opening Internet Explorer “choose Always in Internet Explorer on the desktop” and click ok to save the changes.
Unpin Metro IE tile from Start screen
Now we need to unpin the metro IE tile on the start screen, for that start typing and search for Internet Explorer> right click on it once found and click on “unpin from start” at the bottom, please be careful don’t remove metro IE tile from the start screen as it makes it much harder for us to get it back later if we want.
Now if we click on links in metro apps they’ll be opened in Internet Explorer on the desktop. You can try clicking on any links in PDF file opened in Windows Reader aka built-in PDF Reader.With the above changes we’ve Desktop IE tile appears on start screen.
Getting back/re-enabling Metro IE once its disabled
To get back Metro IE again open IE and Internet Options>Programs>choose “let Internet Explorer Decide” and click ok to save the changes. Pin Metro IE tile back to start screen by searching for Internet Explorer app in Apps.
Actually, you can pin the desktop version:
1. Go to “C:\Users\%YOURUSERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs” in Windows Explorer
2. Right click the shortcut “Internet Explorer”
3. Choose “Pin to Start”
…Enjoy! :)
What’s the point of any metro app on a Server OS? Are there that many windows phones running server OS out there?
I thought they were fixing the common admins’ redicule about having to click on Start > “Shutdown” > Logoff type issues. Now there is whis whole abomination of metro forced on all users like it or not, including server admins.
Yes we like to type and get things done command line, but we don’t like to type commands just to get to a screen grabbing UI!! Wake up Microsoft!