So overnight Windows 10 installed an update. As is usual, and update managed to brick an application. Me and the MUCH better half have unique identities on our home PC. So everything works on my end. But she's the 'administrator' on the account. So while I was at work today, she clicked on a whole lot of boxes (what, I have no idea) that showed up after the update. Now the Edge browser on her identity won't launch. I've searched the Microsoft boards and they recommend running the Powershell program, but that doesn't do it. Others recommend an sfc scan. Nope. Doesn't work either. Nor does the DISM tool. Clicking on the tool doesn't do anything. Nor does going into the start program and trying to launch from there.

I DO NOT WANT to install another browser. We have our own reasons for not wanting to do so, so please don't recommend I install Chrome or one of the alternatives. I need to know how to get Edge working again.

Anyone know how I can get this thing going again?

quote:

Originally posted by XinTX:
I DO NOT WANT to install another browser.

Not going to recommend anything other than that you reconsider this position given its 'Edge' that's creating the problem. In my opinion and experience, Edge is a failure of epic proportions for MS. It crippled two on my machines before I banned all the users on my network (of which there are six) from using it.

I wish you good luck in resolving your issue(s).

No solutions that work retroactively, other than reformat and reinstall Windows.

Proactively, you need to change administrator privileges for your user accounts. User accounts should not have admin privileges. Moreover, if your wife can't make admin level decisions and is prone to clicking on random things without understanding them, she shouldn't have access to any admin accounts, let alone giving admin privileges to her user accounts.

Secondly, you need to have your user data stored separately in either a separate partition in the hard disk, or on a separate hard disk altogether. This makes it very easy to reformat the operating system disk, reinstall your applications, and get on with your life without losing critical data like family photos. This data should have an automatic backup scheme that makes multiple copies of this data as it changes, so you can go back to previous versions in case a user with admin privileges messes up the files. See above.

Lastly, you should make periodic system images that you can revert to instead of having to nuke and pave, as above. About 3 months ago, my computer wouldn't start. Blue screen, telling me that Windows was fucked. Spent 5 minutes actually confirming the computer was fucked, then just reinstalled my system image from a couple of weeks back. All my current work had recent versions saved to the separate data disk (as per my second suggestion above), and my operating system and program files were only two weeks out of date--a couple of automatic software updates from Adobe and Microsoft brought everything back up to date. The only work I had lost was that I had empty the recycle bin again. Total down time was less than 2 hours.

This ^^^^^

Every last bit of it.

My Linux systems have always been remarkably stable. As were all my Unix-based systems before them. And the Xenix systems before those. In fact: Of all the Linux, Unix and Xenix systems I administered over some 25 years, both at home and at work, I think I only ever had one system shit the bed, and that was due to an unfortunate power glitch sequence, an early version of Unix (SVR3) and no UPS.

Still: They all always had storage with regular backups, and data was kept apart from system.

Does it work in one profile and not another?
Sometimes a profile can get corrupt.
In those cases just create a new one and move the data over.

I quit using Edge after the first time I used it after installing Win 10. IE 11 is still in Win 10 and that is what I use.

A restore point was likely set when the update was installed. Might try going back.

quote:

Originally posted by DaBigBR:
A restore point was likely set when the update was installed. Might try going back.

Did that. Still didn't fix it.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Does it work in one profile and not another?
Sometimes a profile can get corrupt.
In those cases just create a new one and move the data over.

Do this, at least try it and see if it works with another user account.