SOT: Edge is pushing me over the edge

Gatecrashing. Continues to appear - how?

Every time there's an update to Windows (about once a month) it offers to make Edge the default browser. I haven't noticed Edge being intrusive apart from that.

Did you sort Chrome out yet? Maybe, the Edge problemo is linked to that? Seems quite likely, really.

Make sure you don't click on anything other than empty space on the lock screen, if you hit any of those rectangles that light-up as you wave the mouse around, then Edge will activate.

That's to try to stop "advertising notifications" from appearing.

It hasn't changed much, in terms of the need to deceive people into not turning stuff off. The three tick boxes at the bottom still matter :-)

Nothing prevents a Microsoft marketing package from ignoring the controls.

Paul

I had not made this connection. Maybe I am confusing Edge with Bing. When I start up my PC I get a message saying 'Microsoft Bing. Microsoft and our third-party vendors use cookies and similar technologies .... etc'. I reject this. The next page to appear is '

I thought the Chrome problem was sorted, until today when I received another profile error message. Do you think that not finding a valid profile for Google results in a default to Bing?

Have you tried opening task manager, selecting 'startup apps' and disabling Edge? Worked for me.

Have you already deleted Chrome and reinstalled it? It's rather likely that, when you did that, Windows promoted Edge to default browser after you deleted Chrome. Have you checked that?

Given the ongoing profile issue: You may need to unhide system directories, so you can copy the Chrome profile, then delete the original before deleting chrome, then reinstalling Chrome.

I'd probably reboot windows in between the chrome deletion and reinstallation, but that's probably not necessary.

Then finish off by making it default browser again.

No, I stopped short of doing that and tried a reset instead. I would prefer not to lose my carefully curated bookmarks, but I can live with that.

I'm always reluctant to unhide (treading where I am not welcome) but it sounds like the way to go.

Me too. I'm a big fan of rebooting.

Neither Edge nor Bing is listed in the startup apps. However, Google Chrome is not listed either. Could this be where the problem lies?

Just export bookmarks to a file, and save that for later import.

You should keep a backup, anyway, as they are important to you.

Okay, thanks. Next challenge is to find the file.

I found the following in my Registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Key: MicrosoftEdgeAutoLaunch Value: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe"

--no-startup-window --win-session-start /prefetch:5

I thought I had deleted it but maybe it came back. I've deleted it again and will see what happens.

"There are two tasks that you can find in Task Scheduler:

MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineCore # An "update" can back out a user setting

MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineUA "

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\edgeupdate # Presumably these are listed in services.msc ? HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\edgeupdatem

"What happens is, during the Edge update/re-install process, it only creates those entries if they don’t already exist. If they do already exist, it leaves them as is (i.e. they stay disabled.)"

Plus the Startup item.

But as a Windows user, you never really know what other mechanisms are at work This should be similar to a GoogleUpdate/GoogleUpdateM philisophy (as Google works on the Chrome/Chromium materials that MSFT edits to make MSEdge.

Paul

I have tried that and it still starts with Microsoft Bing even though Google Chrome is the default browser. I wonder what happens in the EU. I thought there was legislation to allow freedom of choice of browser.

On Sun, 03 Aug 2025 20:11:59 +0100, Dave W snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.co.uk>

wrote: [snip]

I tried to repair Google Chrome using the Control Panel, but it directed me to the CCleaner 7 folder instead. Could this be a clue to the problem?

CCLeaner is more trouble than its worth Its probably removed some chrome keys....

... as for Edge, its always there, even on EU machines. Invoking certain functions will always cause EDGE to be loaded, as Microsoft says these are internal functions not browsing....

Dave

You can turn off the lock screen "widgets" (aka distractions and clutter!)

Start->Settings->Personalisation

On the "Lock screen status" section set the drop down to "None"

I tend to build lists of configuration settings I can just paste into a command prompt to vanquish unwanted settings in new accounts... for example:

powershell -Command "Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Where-Object {$_.Name

-like '*Microsoft.OutlookForWindows*'} | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers" reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager" /v SubscribedContent-310093Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UserProfileEngagement" /v ScoobeSystemSettingEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager" /v SubscribedContent-338389Enabled /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

(removes the "New Outlook" toy email wrapper, and turns off the nag notifications)

Which file? The backup???