Here’s a Microsoft video about WebView2 and the Runtime module.

The safety and stability of WebView2 when it’s used in Office and other apps … that’s the unanswered question. It’s like a cooking utensil in a kitchen drawer, sitting there harmless until grabbed for a task. Leave WebView2 Runtime installed on a computer – it’s not doing anything. Microsoft is hoping to prevent those delays by putting WBRT on computers now, before it’s needed.

WBRT is being installed on Windows machines in preparation for it’s use in Microsoft Office as well as third-party apps.Īn app install will check for WebView2 Runtime on the computer, if it’s not there or not the right version, WBRT will be installed. The common example is Outlook which need the same features created at least twice – once in Outlook for Windows and again in Outlook for web browser (aka OWA). It means Microsoft developers can write a single piece of code that works in both desktop programs and the browser based equivalent. Microsoft Outlook is likely one of the first to make use of WebView2 to expand and standardize features. WBRT is the acronym for Web View2 Run Time Just in the same way that they don’t know if a VB or C# Runtime module is being used. Ideally, people will use a program and never realize they are working with parts of Edge. Instead of insisting people install Microsoft Edge browser, WebView2 Runtime is a library of Edge functions that work without the full browser installation. The program still looks normal, but it can include bits of HTML, CSS and Javascript. Modern apps can call Edge components to, for example, make user interfaces within programs. WebView2 is a similar thing but it’s based around Microsoft’s Edge browser. Other libraries are installed with Windows.

If you’ve used Windows for years, you may remember installing VB Runtime libraries so that some programs could work. Rather than each programmer ‘reinventing the wheel’ for basic tasks, they call on a library to do the job. These libraries are common features and tools which programs can use. WebView2 is the latest in a long series of programming libraries from Microsoft. At worst, it’ll be installed when an app needs it. If it’s not there, the Runtime module may well appear in future.

Microsoft edge webview2