How to reset Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 when things are broken

How to reset Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 when things are broken

In Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing many new features to make users more productive, such as a new Start menu, Cortana, new universal apps, Settings, which is the central place to configure the operating system, ultimately designed to replace Control Panel, and much more. The software giant is also introducing Microsoft Edge, the new default web browser built for the future web and to replace Internet Explorer (which it's still present for compatibility purposes).
Microsoft Edge is a completely new web browser with a minimal design that focus on web content, and like Chrome and Firefox, the software maker plans to match and surpass the features available from its competitors with extensions, web notes, tab preview, Cortana, and more.
While the web browser works quite alright without major problems, it's still in the early days. Some users may run into some issues, such as sudden crashes, slow performance, or simply it won't launch.
If you were running Chrome or Firefox, and you're having similar issues, you should try to uninstall and reinstall the web browser to try to resolve the problem. However, like Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge is part of Windows 10. It's nearly impossible to uninstall the app, and even if you could, you might run into different issues.

If you are having problems with the new web browser, you can try resetting the instance of Microsoft Edge in your account to try to fix the issue you're having.
Of course, we would only recommend you do this as a last resort process, where you have tried everything else and nothing worked.

Warning: Using this guide might cause you lose your favorites, history, and settings. Before, you move forward, it's recommended that you perform a full backup or create a system restore point in case something goes wrong and to need to restore your last good known state of Windows 10.

Fixing Microsoft Edge

1- If you're running Microsoft Edge, close it.

2- Open File Explorer and type the following path into the address: 

C:\Users\UseYourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages and hit Enter. (Remember to replace "UseYourUsername" with your user account name.)

3- Select and try to delete the Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder as you would with any other folder. If you get a "Folder Access Denied" prompt, simply click Continue. Also, there might be some content that you won't be able to delete. If this is the case, in the dialog box, select to skip the files.

You should be able to delete most of the content inside the folder, but if you can't right-click Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe, select Properties, remove the check from the Read-only option, and click Apply and OK.

4- Once you've tried deleting all the content, go inside the Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder and try deleting the remaining folders by selecting all the folders, right-clicking them, selecting Delete, and clicking Yes to confirm the deletion. You may notice that you can't delete AC folder, but that's alright.

5- Restart your computer.

6- Now, were going to re-register Microsoft Edge in your account. Open the Start menu, search for Windows PowerShell, right-click it from the result, and select Run as administrator.

7- Type the following command and hit Enter:
cd C:\Users\UseYourUsername. (Remember to replace "UseYourUsername" with your user account name.)

Then, type the following command exactly and hit Enter:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}

If the process was completed successfully, you would see a message similar to this one:

That's all there is to it. If you want to be cautious, restart your computer one more time, and then you should be able to run Microsoft Edge again and hopefully without any issues.

Privacy and settings in Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge

Privacy and settings in Windows 10 and Microsoft Edge

In lieu of Microsoft's updated notes on user privacy in Windows 10, we're republishing this help and how-to guide for new users.
Microsoft's Windows 10 OS adds and simplifies many things for the user including security and privacy settings. Indeed, Windows 10 is both more secure and yet shares more data than any previous operating system.
The interesting part about security and privacy in Windows 10 is that Microsoft is very transparent on what data they collect, store, use and how they use it. Additionally, the company gives users many ways to opt-out of such data collection. The downside in a user doing this is it disables many of the OS personalization that makes Windows 10 so significant.
Let's break it all down.

Microsoft's Privacy Statement

Before we get started make sure you take a moment to read Microsoft's very public and thorough Privacy Statement : www.microsoft.com/privacystatement as well as a more general statement on Trustworthy Computing.
Microsoft is very clear on what they collect, why the collect it and what they do with it. It is up to you to decide what are the boundaries of acceptance and to know all the details. There are lots of interesting bits, though, and we will highlight a few by using the July 2015 terms for reference.

1. Children and Advertising - Microsoft does not deliver interest-based advertising to children whose birthdate in their Microsoft account identifies them as under 13 years of age.
2. Data Retention - For interest-based advertising, Microsoft retains data for no more than 13 months, unless they obtain your consent to retain the data longer.
3. Data collected includes your name, how to contact, demographics, payment info, usage, contacts and relationships, location, and some content
4. How Microsoft uses your personal data : providing services, service improvement, security, advertising

How to opt-out of interest-based advertising

To be clear, Microsoft is using this information for advertising, even for targeted marketing. In some ways, this is not a bad thing. If you have to see ads would you rather see something mildly interesting or something unrelated to your age or interests? I do not know. It is your preference.
Obviously no ads are the ideal but Microsoft is offering a lot of free services, and they are not immune to this popular business model. To wit:

"Many of our services are supported by advertising. We use the data we collect to help select the ads Microsoft delivers - whether on our own services or on services offered by third parties. The ads we select may be based on your current location, search query, or the content you are viewing. Other ads are targeted based on your likely interests or other information that we learn about you over time using demographic data, search queries, interests and favorites, usage data, and location data - which we refer to as "interest-based advertising" in this statement. Microsoft does not use what you say in email, chat, video calls or voice mail, or your documents, photos or other personal files to target ads to you."

That last point about not using your email is still a vital difference between Microsoft and other competitors in this area. Even if you opt-out of targeted advertising on Gmail you may still see "contextual ads based on the message you are reading as well as other relevant ads".

Luckily, you can easily opt-out of this Microsoft targeted marketing at choice.microsoft.com. At that site, you can choose to turn off personalized ads for your browser and your Microsoft Account.
Mind you, no matter what you choose you still see ads. The option merely chooses between ones relevant to your interests or wild guesses. If you decide to opt-out, do not be shocked to see ads for senior services even if you are in 20's.
Ironically, choosing to turn off 'Personalized ads in this browser' does not work in Microsoft Edge, or rather, it does not stick. I have already brought this issue up with the Edge team, and a ticket has been created to fix it.

The important takeaway here is this: Microsoft is very open about what they are doing with your data. It is, however, a lot of data. Whether you are okay with that is a personal choice, which is why we will now walk you through ways of controlling your privacy and data.

Microsoft Edge

Besides opting out of targeted ads through your Microsoft account, you can also adjust some settings in the Edge browser.

1. Open Edge Browser
2. Tap the ellipsis button at the top right corner (the '…' button)
3. Choose Settings
4. View advanced settings

Here you can find a few privacy options that you can toggle on or off. Specifically:

1. Offer to save passwords
2. Save form entries
3. Send Do Not Track requests
4. Have Cortana assist me in Microsoft Edge
5. Show suggestions as I type
6. Cookies: Block all, only third parties, or don't block

Technically, all of those pose some privacy risk. However, only the Do Not Track (DND) requests and 'block only third-party cookies' are the ones you should turn on to reduce ad tracking. Blocking all cookies could cause login issues on some sites, so be careful if you choose that one.

The rest, including saving passwords and word prediction, do send information to Microsoft. However, the convenience of using those services is hard to give up. Regardless, the choice is yours so think it through.

Windows 10

Microsoft offers many options to control your privacy settings in Windows 10. In fact, Privacy has its own section under Settings making it very obvious where to find these things. The notion that Windows 10 and by extension Microsoft is being dishonest in any way has yet to be demonstrated. Nothing is buried, and nothing is hard to understand. Sure, you may not like some of the defaults but that is another discussion.
For now, we are going to go through the various privacy settings in Windows 10. Here is where you can find them:

All of this is rather basic. Going down further, we can see no less than 13 pages dedicated to this topic. This abundance of options is both a reflection of the amount of data Windows 10 collects and Microsoft's transparency in letting you turn things off. Here are those categories and what they do. 

General

These are the main settings for your advertising ID for apps, SmartScreen Filter, how you write, and language settings. There is also a link to manage further your Microsoft Account settings that jump to the Microsoft Choice page mentioned earlier.
Users can safely turn off advertising ID for apps and language if they have a primary language. The typing one is a bit controversial as this helps with word prediction, which is crucial for mobile. However, if you are concerned, you can turn that one off as well.
SmartScreen Filter is probably best to leave on as it helps detect malicious websites.

Location

The location info is critical for mobile devices as this how things like maps for GPS works. However, for your home PC it is not needed nearly as often. Under this area, you can turn off location for that device and even control whether location gets shared with other apps and services. Think of weather apps or restaurant finders.
Users can also clear their location history with a single button and choose which apps can use your location. There is much fine grain control here

Camera

Most computers these days have a webcam. Do you want the PC to access it? Toggle that switch here. Like location, you can also pick which apps specifically can access the camera.

Microphone

Like camera above users here can enable or disable the microphone system wide. Users can also control access through each app that requests permission.

Speech, inking, & typing

This area is controversial. On the one hand, Windows 10 and specifically Cortana collect info like "contacts, recent calendar events, speech and handwriting patterns and typing history".
At first blush, this sounds controversial. However, letting Cortana have access to your contacts and calendar is how the service enables you to send emails or reminds you of an appointment. Same thing with learning your voice patterns.
If you disable this function, you gain some privacy but lose out on Cortana. Choose wisely.

Account info

Have you noticed how some apps like MSN News show your Microsoft Account information and image? This section is where you can control that behavior. Most users want this universal login for apps, but not everyone trusts it. Switch it off if you do not want apps to access your name, picture, and "other account info".

Contacts

This one is self-explanatory. Control which apps can access your contacts. Things like Mail and Calendar, App connector, and Windows Shell Experience are the basics.

Calendar

Like microphone and camera, this setting lets you enable or disable apps having access to your calendar system wide or on an app by app basis. Once again, App connector and Mail and Calendar are the basics here.

Messaging

Windows 10 for PC currently has no way to send SMS or MMS messages through your phone. However, the feature is rumored to be coming later this year. Don't like the idea of Windows 10 accessing your SMS messages? Disable it in this area. For now, however, this does nothing as there are no apps that utilize this feature.

Radios

Some apps evidently can control your Bluetooth or other radios. This section includes a system wide switch to turn it off or on an app by app basis. Currently, we do not see any third party apps that can utilize this feature.

Other devices

This section is rather large. It lets you decide if you want your Windows 10 apps to "share and sync info with wireless devices that don't explicitly pair with your PC, tablet, or phone". Currently, this feature is not very active so you can likely turn it off for now.
Users can also control external cameras and USB access through other apps.

Everything you need to know about Windows 10 build 10547

Everything you need to know about Windows 10 build 10547

On September 19, Microsoft released yet another preview of Windows 10 (build 10547) to the Fast ring of updates for PCs. This release is the third build the software giant releases to Insiders and the one that shows more significant changes and improvements to the Start menu, Tablet mode, Lock screen, Microsoft Edge web browser, and more.

Recently, we have also come across a few leaks that gave us an early sneak peek on the progress Microsoft is making. These changes will be included in the Threshold 2 update that is likely to roll out sometime in November. However, today we're going to focus on the changes that appear in Windows 10 build 10547 since build 10532. These changes give Insiders a better picture of what has been altered after they have upgraded from the official pre-release build that Microsoft rolled out back in August.

Below you'll find the list with all the changes incorporated in Windows 10 build 10547:

Windows 10 build 10547

Start menu

As I have done previously, I'll begin with the changes in the Start menu. For the Threshold 2 update, Microsoft is working on improving the Start menu. Currently, users can have three columns of medium sized tiles, in build 10547 the software maker is allowing users to have a 4th column of tiles.
 

This is a similar option also found in Windows 10 Mobile. The company is now bringing it to the desktop to allow users to fit up to 4 medium sized or two large Live Tiles per group. This feature is optional, and it can be enabled by going to Settings > Personalization > Start and enabling the Show more tiles pill switch.

This new feature is available when using the normal sizes or the full-screen version of the Start menu. It's also a welcome addition as many users had complained to Microsoft about the waste of space when using the full-screen version of the Start menu.

Windows 10 build 10547 also increases the support of tiles on Start from 512 to 2048, so you can pin plenty apps to the menu.

The Start menu also includes an updated context menu for Windows apps. For example, right-clicking Maps or other apps, you'll notice the More menu that includes the options to: "Turn live tile off" and "Unpin for taskbar", and "Rate and review" and "Share", which are two new options, but they don't seem to be working at this time.

Tablet mode

Tablet mode (Continuum) is also getting a few improvements in build 10547. In this build, Microsoft is bringing additional familiarity from Windows 8. Now, when you use Task View on Tablet mode, you can now snap apps, replace apps already snapped, and swipe the app down to close, which will be very useful for those using tablets, in particular those using a Surface Pro 3.

Lock screen improvements

In this preview, Microsoft is rolling to Windows Insiders improvements to the Lock screen. When the operating system released back on July 29, the sign-in screen featured the default background Microsoft created featuring the Windows logo made out of light.
The wallpaper was well received, and it was also featured in the desktop, but after some time everyone will just get tired of looking at the same image again and again. This complaint is one of the reasons why we have themes and the ability to change wallpapers. Unfortunately, you could change the desktop and the Lock screen wallpapers, but you couldn't change or disable the sign-in screen image.

In the new build, Microsoft is adding a new option that allows users to disable the sign-in screen background. Disabling the experience, you will end up with a solid background color that comes from your current color scheme.

Nonetheless, you still can't change the images for anything else you might like, but it's just a preview, chances are the company will include the ability to set your custom image in later builds.

If you want to disable the sign-in screen image background go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen and turn off the "Show Windows background picture on the sign-in screen" option.

Taskbar on Windows 10

While the Taskbar on Windows 10 remains virtually unchanged, Microsoft seems to be making a few improvements on app icons. In the new build, you'll notice that the software maker is re-designing the Taskbar icons for a few of its built-in apps. This is a move from a monochrome to a multi-color design using a light-gray instead of a white color.

It's worth to point out that not all the built-in apps currently feature this new type of icon design.

New icons

While we have seen new icons in Windows 10 around the desktop environment, Microsoft didn't replace every icon in the operating system. You still can find older icons introduced back in Windows XP.
In this new version, you'll find new icons in Control Panel insider Device and Printers, in the network adapter properties, Device Manager, and other areas.

Context menus

Windows 10 has been very inconsistent on the context menu design throughout different areas of the operating system. Since Microsoft launched Windows 10, we can see different context menus in the Start menu, on Microsoft Edge and the Outlook Mail app, in the Control Panel, and in many other areas.

Since Windows 10 build 10532, the company is trying to address this issue and in the previous build, Microsoft introduced improvements to context menus. Officially in Windows 10 build 10547, we continue to see improvements. For example, now we can see that Windows 10 is moving from a white background color to light gray color, which is similar to what we see today on the context menu found in Microsoft Edge.

Apps

We have seen in leaks, but now it's official, starting build 10547, Microsoft is bringing the same opening/closing animations from desktop applications to the Windows Store apps. This change further improves the experience between the modern and desktop user-interface.

In addition, Microsoft is releasing updates for some of its built-in apps, such as Photos, Xbox app on Windows 10 with a number of features and improvements, and Outlook Mail and Calendar apps.

Control Panel

We know that Microsoft is slowly moving away from the Control Panel in favor of the Settings app. However, the Control Panel in build 10547 includes a change. Now you will notice that the Theme options are back in the same way you used to be able in Windows 8 and Windows 7.

Settings app

Interestingly enough, the Settings app in Windows 10 build 10457 gets a good number of changes.

System

On System, there is a new difference for Multitasking. Under Snap, users will find a new a very interesting feature. Now, you can configure snap so that resizing an app will also re-adjust the size of the other app -- very useful for those working with multiple apps at the same time, and it works with desktop and Windows Store apps.

The option is called "When I resize a snapped window, simultaneously resize my adjacent snapped window" and default disables the option.

Devices

On Devices, the software giant is adding the new USB page, which enables a notification if there are any problems with a USB-connected peripheral.
The option is called "Notify me if there are any issues with the USB devices connected to my PC" and default enables it.

Personalization

In the Personalization section of the Settings app there some changes to the Lock screen and Start.
Inside Lock screen, we can now see that Windows spotlight is back in Windows 10 Pro. This is a feature that will let Windows 10 automatically change images on the Lock screen using Bing images and letting you provide feedback if you like what you see on the screen.
To enable the Windows spotlight, you need to go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen and under Background change the option from the drop-down menu to Windows spotlight. (Refer to the previous image)

Inside Start, we now see that there is a preview area just like the other Personalization tabs, and in this section is where you can enable the Show more tiles option. As I have mentioned before, this option will add a fourth column to the group of tiles to fit up to two wide or large Live Tiles in the Start menu. (Refer to the previous image)
Finally, the "Occasionally show suggestions in Start" makes a comeback in Windows 10 build 10547. (Default disables the option.)

Accounts

In the Accounts settings, there aren't changes for home users. But if your computer is part of an enterprise, school, or another organization, you will notice that now there is a section to make it easier to sign in to Azure AD and there is a new "Enroll into device management", which you will use if your network administrator recommends you to enroll your device into MDM.

Privacy

We have seen the following features in one of the leaks of the operating system, but now they officially incorporated in Windows 10. I'm talking about the Email and Call History settings.

Starting Windows 10 build 10547, users will be able to control which apps can access and send emails or access your call history. You can enable or disable these settings globally or per-app. (Default globally enables the settings.)

Update & security

In Update & security, there is a new change under the Windows Update options. Now, when you go to the update Advanced options, you're not only going to find the option to stop getting Insider builds, but you will also find the Microsoft account you're using to get new builds, and you now have the ability to swap accounts by clicking the Change button.
You can change the account for one that it's already in your system, or you can add a total different Microsoft account.

Microsoft Edge

The default web browser for Windows 10, Microsoft Edge, also get some important improvements. Perhaps the most talked about fix is the inclusion of support for Object Real-Time Communications (ORTC) API. Technology developed by Microsoft, Google and many other companies that allow real-time communication without having to require a presence of a plug-in on the web browser.

If you want to demo this new feature, you can visit this webpage. But remember that you can only call US phone numbers and only for five minutes.
Other changes include a new option in the main menu that allows Microsoft Edge to cast media to devices.

There is an easier way to access to proxy settings from the "Advanced Settings" section of Microsoft Edge that open the proxy settings in the Settings app. In the advanced settings section, there is also a "Hide my local IP address over WebRTC" option, which was available in the leaked version of the operating system, but now is available for everyone. And the web browser gets bumped to version 21.10547.0.0.

Navigating to the about:flags (experimental features) users will also found a new Media Source Extensions section that allows to enable "VP9", which will let users play videos using the open source codecs developed by Google.

Text input

In this build, there are improvements in text input panel. Now the panel expands as you write providing more space in Latin languages, and the text input panel no longer opens automatically when you're not on a tablet.

Wrapping things up

Since Microsoft released Windows 10 to the public back on July 29, users have found many different issues. The company has been proactively working to fix many of the problems by releasing new updates as soon as they were ready. This ability is the Windows as a Service model.
Now the software maker is also working a more significant update, which currently we know as Threshold 2. The changes we're seeing today and more will part of the big update that is likely to roll out to everyone sometime in November.

Source :Mauro Huculak /Windowscentral