"Stable" Edge revisited.

Jacques Van de Meerssche 

-After installing Edge/Canary so many months ago existing pinned desktop shortcuts (Tiles) and sites pinned to the taskbar are still opening in Edge/Classic so far. Will all these be converted and installed as apps after installing the stable version?

I don't think that anyone knows the answer to this question. The so-called "Stable" version has not been officially released, and Microsoft (to my knowledge) has made no announcements or statements at all concerning the build, how deployment will work, or what will happen when Edge Chromium is released.

The leaked "Stable" version is a older than the current Beta version released some weeks ago (the current Beta build is 78.0.276.17, and the "Stable" build is 78.0.276.14), so it seems unlikely that the leaked "Stable" version will be the version actually released by Microsoft.

Reports from folks who have installed the "Stable" suggest two things: (1) when the "RTM" version of Edge Chromium is released, it will effectively remove Edge (Classic) from Windows 10, and (2) be somehow integrated into Windows 10 in a way that will not allow the user to uninstall it. That is not certain, but that is what seems to have been happening for those who download and install the leaked "Stable" build.

My guess, for what it is worth and nothing more, is that Microsoft is using the leaked "Stable" version to test deployment in the wild, testing to make sure that deployment processes work correctly when the "Stable" build is released outside Microsoft.

I think that because (1) the leaked build deploys from non-public directories from two servers used by Microsoft to deploy software (go.microsoft.com and c2rsetup.officeapps.live.com), (2) an early Beta build was leaked from the two servers about two weeks before the Beta Channel was opened to Insiders, and the leaked Beta version was not the version released through the Beta Channel, (3) the leaked "Stable" build is weeks behind current development, and (4) the "to do" list Microsoft has been publishing on this Forum suggests that Microsoft has a lot of work to do before Edge Chromium is ready to be released.

-If yes, would it not be advisable to release a canary version for us to test this before committing to completely disabling E/classic?

It would make lots of sense for Microsoft to release a Stable version that it actually intends to release to Edge Chromium insiders for testing. That is what Microsoft does with Windows 10 versions, and it would be very odd for Microsoft to release Edge Chromium without testing the release version beforehand using Insiders. Pre-release testing and four channels (Canary, Dev, Beta, Stable) is the practice with open source software in general, and it is the practice with Chromium. I assume that Microsoft will not deviate from standard practice.

-Has anybody installed the "stable" version that can enlighten me? Just curious.

I have not, because the "Stable" version, according to reports, cannot be uninstalled through the usual methods. And frankly, there's no point to installing it for me, since the current Beta version is a newer build than the leaked "Stable" version.