As per the MS support document for KB5005036 it is mandatory to have Internet Explorer installed.
But when we disable the IE on a Windows Server 2012 R2, we were still able to install the patch(KB5005036). No error was encountered whatsoever.
Further, it seems there is no registry related to IE being affected.
Suggest if this is the right behavior? If not then there should be no dependency of IE and the reference needs to be removed from the MS Support article.
Links for reference.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/kb5005036-cumulative-security-update-for-internet-explorer-august-10-2021-621b1edb-b461-4d99-ae3e-5add55e53895 - support article for kb5005036
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/browsers/disable-internet-explorer-windows - Steps to disable IE