Microsoft is investigating a bug that causes Chromium-based Edge to automatically launch when Windows 10 version 2004 starts up, while Firefox and Chrome users are also reporting issues with this version of Windows.
Microsoft Edge does have a setting, edge://settings/onStartup, to enable the browser to launch as Windows 10 starts up, but users are reporting that Edge is launching regardless of the setting.
Microsoft is seeking feedback from users on its forum and has asked tech pros to enable diagnostic data sharing from the browser to get to the bottom of the issue.
SEE: Windows 10: A cheat sheet (TechRepublic)
The company notes that so far users have only reported some versions of Edge behaving this way, and it doesn’t yet have an explanation for why it’s launching on startup when it shouldn’t.
The Edge issue has surfaced following Microsoft earlier this month automatically pushing the new browser to Windows 10 1803 and up via Windows Update.
Chrome users have also reported problems with Google’s browser on the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, or Window 10 2004. For some reason, users keep getting signed out of Chrome and forced to sign back in.
As MSPoweruser notes, the behavior was reported to Google’s Chromium team during the preview phase for Windows 10 2004, but the team couldn’t reproduce the error. It also wasn’t initially clear whether the problem stemmed from Chrome or Windows 10.
The user who reported the bug was also using Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 and VMware. They also “solved” the issue by reinstalling Windows and reformatting the PC. The issue appeared to be caused by Microsoft’s Windows data-protection application protocol interface (DPAPI).
“I did a ‘Reset my PC’ where Windows supposedly reinstalls itself (still using Insider Build) with my primary user deleted, DPAPI errors still present and recurring after reinstall,” the user reported in late April.
“Formatted the whole PC and installed non-Insider-Build of Windows, restored documents from backup, so far the past three days I haven’t had any DPAPI errors and Chrome is working just fine.”
However, the Chromium team decided not to attempt to fix the issue because they weren’t seeing an uptick in reports from Chrome users in the Windows 10 Insider program.
That is until Google Project Zero security researcher Tavis Ormandy last week reported experiencing the same issue after installing Windows 10 2004 on his personal laptop.
“[What] I notice is that the user above reports using VMware, and I also use that, version 15.5.5. I don’t use WSL2, so it can’t be that, and credential guard isn’t enabled,” Ormandy noted.
He reckons Chrome is the cause rather than Windows.
There are also a number of reports following Microsoft’s May 27 Windows 10 2004 general availability about the same signing-out issue on Chrome’s support pages.
Eric Lawrence, a Microsoft principal program manager and former Chrome member at Google, is also looking into the cause of the issue. However, one Microsoft employee noted that given Edge is based on Chromium, Microsoft should also be seeing similar reports and it has not yet. But that could change.
“I imagine Edge will hit this too soon,” wrote Ormandy.
SEE: How to tell if your device is eligible for the Windows 10 May 2020 update
As reported by Techdows, Firefox users are also reporting the browser is crashing after installing Windows 10 2004.
The browser issues on Windows 10 2004 add to a pile of problems already discovered with incompatible Intel, Nvidia and Realtek drivers, and last week two apparently separate printer problems surfaced.
One of the printer issues affects Windows 10 1903 through to 2004, while another happened after users installed the June Patch Tuesday update.
There’s also a compatibility hold on Windows 10 2004 for several Surface devices, which will remain in place for several more weeks, despite a fix in the Patch Tuesday update that resolves the bug.
