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Problem description: As the title says, Defender is blocking Edge from opening. I only use Edge to get a few points from searching Bing for the MS Rewards program. If I look in the Protection History for Defender, it calls it Behavior:Win32/Powessere.SA and links to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/threats/malware-encyclopedia-description?name=Behavior%3aWin32%2fPowessere.SA&threatid=2147796557, which basically says "This generic detection for suspicious behaviors is designed to catch potentially malicious files. If you downloaded a file or received it through email, ensure that it is from a reliable source before opening it.". My suspicion is that Edge updated and Defender is "catching" some new behavior and thinking it is malware. Trying to google anything with "edge" and "virus/malware" or the name Defender spits out returns nothing useful. Attempted fixes: I made sure Defender was up to date. Quick scan didn't find anything. Full scan didn't find anything either. Installed Malwarebytes, but it didn't find anything. Then I tried refreshing Edge from Apps & Features, since it won't let me uninstall it. Then I looked up how to force uninstall Edge, did that, then reinstalled from the MS Store. Still blocked. Recent changes: Nothing I can think of. I haven't installed anything questionable or browsed any sketchy websites. -- Operating system: Windows 11 64bit System specs: Probably not relevant, but I built it myself. Ryzen 5600X, 16gb ram, Asrock B550M Pro4, EVGA 3060 ti. Location: USA I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes
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Apr 27, 2022 15:49
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 23:39 |
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I tried contacting MS text chat support and they immediately went to "just reformat, lol". I would suck it up if Windows Security actually found something when scanning but couldn't get rid of it. I still think it's a false positive since it flags it as a "generic suspicious behavior" with zero details, the only google hit is for their entry in their encyclopedia, actually scanning for it turns up nothing, and I haven't downloaded/installed anything sketchy. Is there anything else I can do?
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Apr 28, 2022 22:54
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Make sure W11 is fully updated. Then you could do a full offline virus scan with defender.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:12
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Checked for updates and ran the Offline Scan, Edge still blocked. I noticed it pops up a notification on startup as if I tried to start Edge, probably whatever service they run getting blocked. Also tried installing the beta channel of Edge, which starts without getting blocked, but at some point it starts popping up a message saying "Defender wants to reset your settings" every time it's opened. Really think it's just borked and I can't find whatever I need to delete to reset it. I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and reformat just so I don't have to worry about it anymore. It's particularly annoying since I just did that recently to install Windows 11 in the first place, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious way to fix this.
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Apr 29, 2022 22:50
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Yeah, when a new OS is released it seems there are always odd issues in the first year or so.
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Apr 29, 2022 23:37
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 23:39 |
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I am both an idiot and a genius at the same time. I started digging around to see what I wanted to back up before reformatting and spotted ChrEdgeFkOff, a script I was using to make windows use the default browser instead of Edge. Apparently Defender was tripping over that, because once I figured out how to uninstall it, Edge started right up. MS wants you to use Edge so bad they'll trigger their antivirus if you try to circumvent it. Probably should have figured this out sooner, and I did consider this possibility at one point, but I thought I had used it before I reinstalled for Windows 11 and I couldn't google up the exact method I had been using. Pain in the rear end, but at least it's fixed now.
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Apr 30, 2022 00:09
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