0

Since long we are using shdocvw.dll to show web pages in our application.

Should using the dll also work when Internet Explorer is not installed and Edge is installed?

Lieven Cardoen
  • 25,140
  • 52
  • 153
  • 244

1 Answers1

1

I think it can't work without IE being installed. The library contains the user interface (documents) portions of both Internet Explorer and the file system. For more information, you can refer to this article.

For Internet Explorer, the two most common uses of the library are:

  • Enumerate the open Internet Explorer browser windows
  • Create a new instance of an Internet Explorer browser window outside of our program

The SHDocVw.dll library is also known as the WebBrowser Control and I found this line in the official doc:

The WebBrowser control (Shdocvw.dll) is a part of Internet Explorer and can only be used on systems that have Internet Explorer installed.

Yu Zhou
  • 11,532
  • 1
  • 8
  • 22
  • Mmm.. thx for the answer. It is strange though because I've uninstalled Internet Explorer and embedding HTML pages into our application with the shdocvw.dll still works... – Lieven Cardoen Aug 17 '20 at 08:25
  • Are you using the methods in [this article](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4013567/how-to-disable-internet-explorer-on-windows) to uninstall IE? If so, I think IE is just disabled and still in the system. IE is a part of Windows and I think it's hard to uninstall it totally. If not, maybe the official doc in the answer is obsolete and the situation is changed now. But I can't find other official doc about this. – Yu Zhou Aug 17 '20 at 08:52
  • Yes, used DISM to disable IE. A customer of ours however did manage to uninstall it totally... Thx for your help. – Lieven Cardoen Aug 18 '20 at 09:47