Stopping the Edge Shortcut on Update. . . Possibly

I know how to stop the EDGE shortcut creation...

How to remove Microsoft Edge from Windows 10 | TechRadar

Works on Windows 11 as well.
If I recall correctly, it will break Widgets (W11), and News & Interests (W10), but no great loss there.
It's been a while since I tested this... so make a backup first... then play around with this.

Farvatten said:

I also just found this Ghacks post:

Prevent Microsoft Edge from creating Windows desktop shortcuts

Basically it about simply creating this one Registry Entry:

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate]
"CreateDesktopShortcutDefault"=dword:00000000

According to Softpedia it should be set to:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate]
"CreateDesktopShortcutDefault"=dword:0

I cannot test because I don't have the issue. Edge auto updates fine for me without creating additional desktop shortcuts.

Microsoft Edge keeps recreating a desktop shortcut

Of course it would be possible to simply run a script at startup to delete it...

Ghot said:

I know how to stop the EDGE shortcut creation...
How to remove Microsoft Edge from Windows 10 | TechRadar

Hmm. . . Isn't that like the cure is worse than the disease? . . .

Callender said:

According to Softpedia it should be set to:

Code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate]
"CreateDesktopShortcutDefault"=dword:0

Microsoft Edge keeps recreating a desktop shortcut

That's the same as what's goin' 'round the web but without the four extra steps like I added and I left the extra 0's.

The first three paragraphs are telling, I like this from your link:

it looks like the desktop shortcut is recreated every time Microsoft Edge is getting an update.
This makes sense given it’s a part of the Windows experience, but on the other hand, the shortcut shouldn’t be re-added to the desktop if users haven’t configured the browser as the default choice on the operating system.

• As for my quote; I've also noticed it happens more often after defender updates.
• Setting Edge to default doesn't work consistently. My system two has been on Edge as the default browser since new (3yrs) and it's showing an icon.
• The icon won't show the day after it's removed but the mileage may vary, sometimes it has come back, but runnin' Edge as default seems to keep it away longer.
• It's odd to me that this icon can regenerate on a daily basis most of the time but Edge doesn't update that frequently that's why I'm lookin' at the defender updates, this may be crazy logic but doesn't a browser depend on its defender?

btw. . . System one had no other update than a security definition update overnight and no icon.

I'll let my registry adjustments ride for awhile yet for a larger sampling of the behavior.