I recently helped someone who had problems with their laptop — an HP Envy, a few years old but still running Windows pretty well. It will install updates, receive feature releases and get click-to-run Office 365 updates. But there’s one basic problem: Google Chrome browser won’t install.
We need Chrome to access some projects that demand Google platform. Easy, right? Not so much on this laptop. Let me walk you through the snooping and tactics I needed to install Chrome, a process that offers lessons to other users when a seemingly good install goes bad.
I downloaded the stub installer and the enterprise installer and the installer would flash a window, then close and not install. (The event viewer indicates that the installation failed, but gives no clue as to why.)
In reviewing what files are installed on the machine I found something called “Fast Browser” residing in the registry in place of the Chrome browser. I tried to delete it. No dice. Next, I tried the Revo uninstaller in a futile attempt to uninstall Fast Browser and the remnants of Chrome. That’s when I found evidence of a past program whose purpose was to disable Microsoft Defender. I was hoping to avoid doing a complete reinstall, so I kept trying to clean up this clearly corrupted operating system. Because the Revo uninstaller couldn’t find the previous Chrome installation — even though the registry key indicates that the operating system has thought Chrome is there — I scanned the registry. Turns out the Chrome registry key has been left behind.
None of the recommended troubleshooting techniques for installing Chrome work. One recommendation is to remove the antivirus software. But since Defender is installed, no third-party antivirus should be removed. (I did see that the Background Smart Transfer Service was set to manual so I set the service to automatic and tried again.
Fail.
I checked to see if the network drivers on the HP Envy were up to date. Formerly. Reminder: only go to the vendor’s site or Microsoft to update the driver. Using third-party driver installation tools is often fraught with risks.
Next, I used a registry editor to scan all Chrome locations in the registry. I then tried to delete Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Google and Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Google in Registry Editor. Here comes the interesting stuff: I can’t delete the registry key. I got an error message that I don’t have permission to edit this registry key. I kept trying the other suggestions and using Microsoft’s troubleshooting tool to see if it would find the Google chrome installation and remove it. (Found unable to uninstall.) UAC or User Account Control is already enabled, so there’s nothing I can do.
Next, I checked the system startup for anything installed on boot that might be causing this problem. Here, things get interesting: msconfig shows that the system is set to perform a selective startup, and nothing I’ve tried allows it to change to normal startup.
I could have used the tool to try to take control of the registry keys, but I have now decided that I can no longer trust this hard drive. Even if I find a way to reset permissions or restart the operating system, I no longer consider it a safe operating system. So I took the opportunity to not only repair the laptop, but upgrade it as well.
The Envy comes with a traditional IDE hard drive; I chose to upgrade the system with an SSD drive. Once done, I inserted the flash drive with the Windows 10 ISO image from the Microsoft download site. The HP laptop immediately found the flash drive and started installing the operating system. Since the digital Windows 10 license is tied to the laptop’s motherboard, the system automatically reactivates Windows 10 without me having to provide the product key.
Then I reinstalled documents, pictures and various items from the original drive (after scanning for security issues first). I put the old drive in the external USB enclosure. Then I took ownership of the old user folder so I could copy the data back to the SSD. (I’m a fan of adding the “take ownership” option in my right mouse click properties menu because it lets me easily copy files to a new drive.)
Finally, I started looking for other files to make the transition easier. If you can’t find anything without your favorite browser, depending on your browser preferences, you’ll need to find and copy it back to a new drive. In the case of Firefox, you can find the backup bookmarks folder in the original user profile and restore it.
I prefer to use a password manager instead of storing passwords in your browser, but if you do the latter, you can export and import them (after you’ve adjusted your browser to expose this capability.) Once you get your machine back rebuilt, remember to retrieve full image backup of your system.
Since I didn’t have a trusted backup to restore from, I had to rebuild this laptop from scratch. And even though the Envy is better than ever because of the SSD upgrade, moving to a new computer always bothers me. It took time to get the system back “just like that.” Often there are small programs, applications or bits of data that I forget I need. I recommend that you keep the old hard drive in a USB receptacle in case you accidentally forget a file.
The bottom line is this: when your Windows computer won’t let you “fix it”, it’s time to rebuild from scratch. So it’s important to plan ahead and always have (or know where you can quickly get) an external hard drive enclosure, a spare SSD, and a flash drive (with at least 8 GB of space) to build a bootable Windows 10 ISO.
So how do you approach this ill-behaved computer? What other tools or tricks would you use? Join the discussion on Askwoody.com
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