[kevingadd]

IE has been a system-level service in Windows for a long time. Naturally, you could boot the kernel without it, but a bunch of included Windows software (by Microsoft, as part of the distribution) and even system libraries rely on parts of IE.

Even now, there are weird dependencies on IE components that you wouldn't expect: http://randomascii.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/you-got-your-web...

It's quite possible it was all bullshit at the time of the antitrust case, but it's been true for quite a while now. In practice, 'removing' IE from windows at this point would just mean removing iexplore.exe, because literally every native .dll and COM .dll bundled with IE is probably leveraged by some application or component somewhere in the OS. The whole IE object model and programming interface are documented on the web and exposed, so there are programs using them - Valve's Steam game management/storefront app used to use it before they moved to their own embedded version of WebKit.

[vertex-four]

> In practice, 'removing' IE from windows at this point would just mean removing iexplore.exe

And this is exactly what happens if you don't install IE with Browser Choice in the EU. The rendering engine and all the DLLs are still installed, It's just iexplore.exe which isn't.