Basically, think of it like: LTSC ships without a browser. If you want a browser, go install one from the App Store. What it does ship with is an ActiveX-enabled-Intranet client.

And then there are all the internal corporate web portals that are still IE-only, and probably will remain so for as long as IE is supported in any shape or form.

Or at the very least, Explorer and the task bar should do everything in its power to hide the existence of Internet Explorer 11. It shouldn't be listed as a program anywhere by default and it shouldn't come up in search.

We have multi-million dollar software that relies on IE to run -- that's why. What good is an OS that can't run our software?

Since Windows 10 we've setup an icon to just launch this application in IE and set the default browser for end-users to Chrome.

Eventually that software will be replaced and we can end our use of IE but today is not that day.

I don't use it so I'd rather not have it on my machine.

(Or alternatively, Microsoft could put some hack into Windows so that attempts to run iexplore.exe are passed to Edge unless the administrator has twiddled with some arbitrary registry key or group policy.)

They could but that goes back to reply about it existing software still requiring IE.

IE will be around for as long as very critical apps still require it. In some form, it might be around forever.

But what's the benefit of complicating the install?

2. A smaller OS.

3. A more secure OS (the wrapper probably isn't bug free).

This probably only matters if it's attempted to be used.

I will concede that you will save a few MB on your multi-GB Windows install.

I'm sure this would not be a big deal for a multi-million dollar company.

My org loaded Chrome on all of the machines for our internal web sites, but according to my logs, almost nobody uses it. They're just too used to clicking on the (e), I guess.

I expect it's not not that MS believes no one needs IE, it's that they know they're stuck with it and would really rather not be.