This was a very frustrating issue that puzzled me for several hours before I figured it out.
Essentially, Microsoft Edge would not start for me. Normally I prefer to use Firefox, as it is the safest and most respectful of privacy (in my opinion)… however there are some websites that just do not play nicely with Firefox, such as sites designed to work primarily with Chrome-based browsers in mind. Thus, I use Edge for those purposes.
I had just performed a Windows 10 upgrade to a newer version, and shortly after noticed that Edge would no longer start. I would click the button in the start menu and the program would never launch. I rebooted a few times – no luck. I downloaded the offline installer for the latest version of Edge and reinstall it that way – again, no luck.
I had followed several guides out there that suggested a repair of Edge via “Add/Remove Programs” – also no luck.
I tried to retrace my steps and ask myself what else had I done besides a feature upgrade to the OS? I installed some new drivers, updated some other software… but that couldn’t really explain it.
Then I realized that I have a habit of re-hardening my OS after every feature upgrade, because I have noticed that many if not most settings such as telemetry sharing tend to reset to the default after upgrades. Once of the best utilities for hardening and privacy enhancement is a tool called O&O Shutup10++ (link: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10).
I decided to review my O&O Shutup10++ settings. The first thing I did was disable every setting that I had related to Edge:
After setting all the options back to their default “no”, I was immediately able to launch Edge! So I knew one of the settings had to be causing the problem.
I stepped through one by one each setting until I identified which setting broke Edge. It was the option to “Disable sending data about browser usage”. Darn! I didn’t want to enable the setting because I like all forms of telemetry disabled. However if it is a choice between having a working browser and not, then I guess I will have to live with it. Besides, Edge is just my fallback browser for when a site does not work with Firefox.
To elaborate, this particular setting in O&O Shutup10++ corresponds to the regkey value MetricsReportingEnabled (a REG_DWORD type with data value of 0), located in COMPUTER\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge.
If you toggle the setting back off, then the regkey gets deleted (rather than say, changing the data value of the key).
I decided to check in the Edge GUI to see if there was perhaps a more valid option to select from – and sure enough, there isn’t! It appears that they now force you to send “diagnostic data” telemetry back to MS – and you cannot disable it!
In a nutshell there does not appear to be another way to handle this, and if you want to use Edge you will just have to live with the setting as such. I do have to wonder if this was intentional to have Edge crash if that regkey is set, or whether it is just a bug in the startup process of the browser?
Originally, I had confused the fact that I recently upgraded to a newer version of Windows 10 with the issue of Edge crashing, when really it is because I re-ran my OS & browser hardening utility shortly after the upgrade. I do so because Microsoft and other vendors have a habit of re-initializing settings, especially those related to privacy, after upgrades. This led me to keep searching google for terms like “Edge won’t start after Windows upgrade” – and led me down a fruitless path of trying to repair the browser.
Those of us who tinker with settings so as to maximize our security and/or privacy, or even to maximize performance, often end up causing ourselves much grief due to our seemingly abnormal efforts; and because we run non-default/standard configurations, it can make troubleshooting that much more frustrating.
I hope this article helps you out if you were having this type of problem!
Edit: looks like O&O updated their utility to no longer set a value of that regkey – the setting is gone entirely! I probably should have upgraded to a newer version after the Windows 10 upgrade. Shame on me!
#edge #edgebrowser #edgewontstart #edgecrashing #edgewontlaunch #edgenotstarting #edgefailure #edgehardening #browserhardening #ooshutup #edgetelemetry #browsertelemetry
Never A Null Moment 