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Microsoft is bringing its Edge WebView2 runtime for embedding web components into apps to more Windows 10 consumer devices. 

WebView 2, which is built on Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge browser, is included as part of Windows 11 but for Windows 10, Microsoft has recommended developers distribute and install the runtime with their applications. 

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WebView2 is a control for integrating web content into an app, such as in JavaScript and HTML. Edge serves as the rendering engine to display web content in apps. 

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Microsoft says that more than 400 million Windows 10 devices now have WebView2, thanks to developers distributing WebView2 applications.

But now Microsoft wants to bring WebView2 to more Windows 10 devices, including those running the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, in order to reduce the workload on developers. 

"Redistributable runtime deployment allows developers to use WebView2 on devices that didn't yet have the runtime, but comes with increased development cost and has been a pain point for WebView2 developers," explains senior PM manager on Microsoft Edge, Limin Zhu. 

"Once we complete the WebView2 Runtime rollout started today, developers can more reliably depend on the presence of WebView2 on Windows 10 or later consumer devices, in addition to all Windows 11 devices, making WebView2 app deployment much more straightforward.   

"With the rollout, we plan to cover Consumer devices with Windows 10 April 2018 or later update for Home and Pro OS editions. Managed devices are not included in the rollout."

Zhu says the WebView Runtime rollout will have "minimal disk space impact" on end-user devices. 

"The WebView2 Runtime and Microsoft Edge browser are "hard-linked" together, which means they only occupy the disk space of one product when they are on the same version. This ensures that the WebView2 Runtime installation has minimal impact to your device."

Microsoft will roll the runtime out in progressively larger waves as it monitors data and feedback. 

Microsoft is only rolling it out to consumer devices and, for now, it is just evaluating rollouts for managed devices or those joined to an enterprise domain. 

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