Windows 8: the taskbar’s Chrome won’t open without right-clicking, but why

google-chrometaskbarwindows 8

I have a Chrome icon on my taskbar. If I left-click it, it glows as if to open, but then the glowing goes away and nothing happens. If I right-click it, then I can successfully open Chrome by clicking 'New window' or 'New incognito window' under 'Tasks'. [I'll add that the exact same problem occurs with Chrome's desktop icon, and with the Start menu's entry for Chrome. Neither will open unless you right-click and choose 'Open new window' or 'Run as administrator'.]

I suspected it had something to do with a more general problem, where Windows 8 refuses to treat you like an Administrator. I've tried a lot of fixes over the months, and I think most manifestations of the problem have been dealt with. But Chrome still won't open normally.

Upon observing Task Manager, I've found that delegate_execute.exe runs for about one second and then goes away.

In addition to creating a new Chrome profile, and reinstalling Chrome, here are some attempted fixes that have not worked:

Fix #1:

Right-click the Chrome icon in the Taskbar
Right-click on 'Google Chrome' in the menu
Left-click 'Properties'
Left-click 'Advanced' under 'General' tab
Check 'Run as administrator', OK, OK

Fix #2:

Right-click the Chrome icon in the Taskbar
Right-click on 'Google Chrome' in the menu
Left-click 'Properties'
Left-click 'Compatibility' tab
Check 'Run as administrator' under 'Privilege level', OK

Fix #3:

Right-click the Chrome icon in the Taskbar
Left-click 'Unpin this program from taskbar'
Start Chrome
Right-click the icon again
Left-click 'Pin this program to taskbar'

Fix #4 (as per http://piglings.blogspot.de/2009/04/google-chrome-not-working-google-chrome.html):

Run cmd
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\(version number)\Installer
setup.exe --rename-chrome-exe

Any help would be appreciated.

Windows 8, Version 6.2 (Build 9200)

Best Answer

Nothing happens.

This is always false, by design; if you make a mouse click, lines of code get executed. Now, you don't get the expected result; what happens at ... in "Click --> ... --> Browser pops up"?

Click!

You've clicked; so, the driver catches processes this and together with the kernel and window manager it produces a mouse event which is then processed. You can see this being processed, as the icon lights up at the bottom; the task bar informs there that it has received its mouse event. We can be certain that this part of the executed code works.

Locating and launching the executable...

The icon on the task bar has a location specified in its properties; the executable there is found, properties are checked and then finally it is launched. Well, if everything goes right; it could be that locating goes wrong, but then you would get a warning and it could also be that the properties or launching goes wrong, but then you get a warning as well. So, nothing really goes wrong here, if you can see the process; if it did, you would see this by either a warning or an entry in the event logs.

Google Chrome's turn.

So, the executable is launched; now Google Chrome starts to load all its libraries, all its settings, all data, your user profile and some more. That's really a mouthful; so yeah, a lot can go wrong here. Will it tell you what went wrong? Not always. Will some uneducated fix attempt work? Maybe, unlikely.

Where's my browser window?!

It is there, or maybe it isn't; hard to tell. For all we know, as you described the process is present; because you are able to use its tasks. So, it is either stuck on something or something failed; but what. This is where you need to inspect the situation.

Look at the state of the multiple processes, look at their threads; which functions are they stuck at? If you can't see it from the current state as is, you'll need to look at a trace instead; does it write to some log file? Does it result in ACCESS DENIED trying to access some file? Is a file missing? ...?

Can I or anyone tell what went wrong without such details; no, we can't, you'll need to inspect how things work in order to know why it is broken the way it is.

I just want my browser window!

Sometimes you can't fix something that is horribly broke; you need to start over then, that means by trying to replace things from the bottom up from easy to hard:

  1. Start a new browser profile.
  2. Reinstall the browser.
  3. Start a new user profile.
  4. Restore a backup.
  5. Reinstall your operating system.
  6. Buy a new computer.

Up to you whether you want to troubleshoot and fix it or nuke it and start from scratch.

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