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My father called me today. His Edge and Chrome stopped working since yesterday.

He showed me the Problem and Edge immediately closes itself after opening it.

Chrome shows an Error page, similar to the "No Internet Connection" error page. If you try to switch the Profile, the selection menu is an empty modal.

Trying to delete / rename the Chrome folder in %appdata% yields an error that the resource is locked even though chrome is not running in the task manager.

This suggests that something is locking this folder in a way that Chrome can't access it anymore. Probably the whole OS can't access the folder because it's locked.

I uninstalled the Windows Update that has been installed one day earlier, but this doesn't fix the issue. Re-Installing Edge also doesn't fix the issue.

I have no idea what to do. There are no system restore points and formatting is not an option for now.

He will need to use Edge in order to access some company resources. So using Firefox is not an option.

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?

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  • Before reinstalling Windows unnecessarily, boot into Safe Mode, and delete the Chrome and Edge user profiles. If this is what I think it is, malicious crypto miner, a in-place repair install will still exist unless a clean install is performed. The Safe Mode deletion of the profile should delete the infection, if it’s an infection
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 20:56
  • If you wish to keep your father's bookmarks, don't delete the Chrome user profile before saving the file C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Bookmarks. And similar for Edge.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 21:02
  • ... Better save the entire profile folder.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 19, 2023 at 21:18

1 Answer 1

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Try a Windows 10 Repair Install and see if that fixes the issue.

Go to the Windows Media Creation Link

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Windows 10/11 is running, so click on the Download button (not Upgrade Button) and select Run. This will launch the Repair. Proceed normally answering the prompts. The default Keep prompt is to Keep Everything.

This normally works.

If not, consider backing up and installing Windows 10 fresh. Recover backed up data.

If somehow, your father got a virus on the computer, a fresh install is often the best way to get rid of it permanently.

Windows Defender works, but sometimes you don't always know if the virus is permanently gone.

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  • Kaspersky found Racoon stealer. He deleted it. Now the windows logon is broken. I will try the repair install or do a fresh install.
    – C5H8NNaO4
    Commented Nov 20, 2023 at 10:55

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