The WebView2 control is not available in the stable Edge installation and you should not rely on insider channel on production machines. However, for production, you must use the WebView2 runtime.

Dev channel – weekly updates that have been previously tested by the Edge teamįor development purposes, you can use any Insider (non-stable) Microsoft Edge (Chromium) browser channel.

Beta channel – major stable updates every 6 weeks.

You can also use preview builds of the Microsoft Edge browser by using one of its insider channels: The minimum version that works is 82.0.488.0. You can check the version of the browser if you go the Edge menu > Help and feedback > About Microsoft Edge. So you know that you have the browser if its icon looks as follows: The new, Chromium-based Edge browser has a new icon. On Windows, it works on version 10, 8, 8.1, and 7. If you are running on Windows 10, Edge should be updated automatically.

If you have the Windows automatic updates enabled (and you should) the browser is automatically updated so you do not have to trouble with keeping up with security updates.

WebView2 is the control that Microsoft is building for using Edge.

Edge it is the default browser for the platform.

Using Edge and the WebView2 control is a natural choice because: If you are working on existing Windows native applications that display web content or want to create new ones, you should no longer rely on Microsoft ActiveX web browser control. All efforts are focused on Edge, and the new version of Microsoft Edge is based on the Chromium project. Although Internet Explorer is still available in order to maintain compatibility with older websites and intranet sites that require ActiveX and other Microsoft legacy web technologies, it is no longer developed. Microsoft has deprecated its Internet Explorer browser and replaced it as default browser on Windows 10 with Edge.

use the asynchronous programming model of Edge.

navigate to pages with customer headers or content.

how to add the WebView2 control to your C++ desktop applications.

Part 4: Performing navigation with custom data and headers.Part 1: Introduction to Edge and WebView2.

Microsoft edge runtime