Edge Browser Hijack

I have been working on Microsoft stuff for almost twenty years now....I know there is forever going to be a new exploit or bug but "C'mon Microsoft!!! Really?" This one is just careless and stupid. This is your new flag ship browser that you are touting the best security on!

I just ran into a really nasty Browser Hijack on Windows 10 with Microsoft Edge.

I clicked on a website link and was immediately presented the below. I can't close it, I can't hit Alt-F4 to close it, I can't get to the setting for Edge. No problem normally right? Just close it with Task Manager and it will go away. Then you can scan with Antivirus just to be sure….well not so much. When I re-opened Edge I immediately got the same pop up again. Here is the thing….I could not get it to close so I could not get around it. I tried closing the browser again and same thing. I read a couple of articles online, one stating that if you turn off networking you can reset it but no joy there either. There is a nine page long discussion here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_internet-insider_spartan/edge-browser-hijacked-unable-to-reset/1768f671-90d9-4dfb-88c5-679a3664634a?page=1 that even up until today people are trying to figure this one out.

I found my answer here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_web/how-do-i-stop-all-these-damned-tabs-that-keep/75f8687c-ca58-4236-9919-bba58efc8249?page=1 through FirstBrownman's post.

What I had to do to fix this was

1.       Close the Edge Browser

2.       Navigate to the following directory C:\Users\<users>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_xxxxxx\AC\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Recovery\Active

3.       Delete everything in that directory.

You can now open Microsoft Edge back up again without the above.

BTW this also works if you are experiencing a lot of popups in Edge as well! 

At this time doing a scan with Windows Defender does not work!  So again...."C'mon Microsoft!!! Really?"