Get rid of IE11 on Windows 10 (only if absolutely need to)

Update: I kinda regret removing IE11 and wrote this post now. I had to bring it back to fix some weird issue…Without IE11, there are just stuffs stop working on windows 10. If you absolutely need to remove IE11, the use this post. Otherwise, just keep it to avoid unnecessary issues.

Microsoft has it not-so-painful to get rid of IE11 in Windows 10, jusing the “Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features” and then “Turn Windows features on or off”. However after reboot following the IE11 removal, there would be issue with openning html links in Outlook and Onenote for example, even new Edge Chromium is set as the default browser already… Here is a screenshot of the warning message…

The message is not intuitive at all. What it should really say is “there is no application to handle the HTML link”…

To fix it (for me at least on Windows 10 Pro v1909 Build 18363.752):

1. Close the outlook/onenote/whatever application has the html link
2. Open Registry Editor and find following key
3. Make sure the “(Default)” property is set with value “htmlfile”
4. Modify the value as needed but do backup the registry first
5. Navigate to following path in the registry editor
6. There should not be key “open” and its sub-key “command” listed. If there are, then it is a different issue for you and this post won’t help you.
7. Create the key “open”, sub-key “command” and set the “(Default)” property to use Edge Chromium.
8. Close the Registry Editor and try the html links again.

 

NOTE: The html link should open in your preferred default browser set in Windows 10. It could be Firefox, Chrome or Edge Chromium regardless of the value set in step 7 above.

Auto Hide bookmark toolbar in Firefox v75

As of Firefox 69, the browser will no longer load userChrome.css by default. The toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets preference needs to be manually set to true to restore this ability.

Until Firefox v72, the old trick was still functioning. With the help from Reddit and Github, here below are the steps to accomplish the same in Firefox v75 (most likely works for v72-74 as well):

• Go to about:support within Firefox
• Under Profile Directory, click on Open Directory
• Create a folder called “chrome” without quotes
• Enter chrome, right click and create a new text file. Name it “userChrome.css” without quotes
• Copy and paste the CSS code below into userChrome.css
• Restart Firefox (make sure “show bookmark toolbar” is checked already)

#PersonalToolbar{
--uc-bm-height: 20px; /* Might need to adjust if the toolbar has other buttons */
--uc-bm-padding: 2px; /* Vertical padding to be applied to bookmarks */
}

:root[uidensity="compact"] #PersonalToolbar{ --uc-bm-padding: 1px }
:root[uidensity="touch"] #PersonalToolbar{ --uc-bm-padding: 6px }

#PersonalToolbar:not([customizing]){
margin-bottom: calc(2px - var(--uc-bm-height) - 2 * var(--uc-bm-padding));
transform: rotateX(90deg);
transform-origin: top;
transition: transform 135ms linear 600ms !important;
z-index: 1;
}
#PlacesToolbarItems > .bookmark-item{ padding-block: var(--uc-bm-padding) !important; }

/* SELECT BOOKMARKS TOOLBAR BEHAVIOR */
/* Comment out or delete either one of these to disable that behavior */


/* Show when urlbar is focused */
#nav-bar:focus-within + #PersonalToolbar{
transition-delay: 100ms !important;
transform: rotateX(0);
}

/* Show when cursor is over the toolbar area */
#navigator-toolbox:hover > #PersonalToolbar{
transition-delay: 100ms !important;
transform: rotateX(0);
}

#PersonalToolbar:not([customizing]){margin-bottom: calc(-1px - var(--uc-bm-height) - 2 * var(--uc-bm-padding));}

Credit: https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-csshacks/blob/master/chrome/autohide_bookmarks_toolbar.css