Does the webbrowser require IE installed on client machine

Question

I was just wondering whether any version of I.E. must be installed on the client machine when deploying an application that uses the webbrowser control (target .net 2 platform)<

Answer 1

Yes, it does - but every windows computer has IE preinstalled.

Answer 2

The webbrowser control do require IE present on the machine as it requires MSHTML.

Answer 3

Yes, the webbrower control uses mshtml.dll which is provided by Internet Explorer.

Answer 4

When you use the "Add/Remove Windows Components" applet to "remove" Internet Explorer, it removes the iexplore.exe entry point but leaves all of the components of the Web Browser Control installed. Those components are a critical part of windows and cannot be uninstalled.

Having said that, if the user does remove Internet Explorer using this option, there can be problems with Web Browser Controls that try to spawn new windows. Please see http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2009/06/19/making-the-web-browser-control-launch-the-default-browser.aspx