Last week, my Windows 10 work laptop started having issues. First I noticed that Microsoft Edge was unable to load any websites. Then it was Internet Explorer. Then Skype reported its homepage was unavailable. As you might imagine, this caused my antennae to go up in a hurry.
A reboot did not help, and neither did a suggestion I found from a Microsoft representative to run System File Checker (sfc.exe). I did that over the weekend, but it found no problems at all. That was nice, particularly considering that I’ve been using this machine for less than a month.
The solution to the problem in my case, at least, was simpler than I expected. I searched for the Internet Options item from the Control Panel, navigated to the Advanced tab, and clicked Reset. I checked the Delete personal settings checkbox—that may not have been necessary, but I figured I might as well burn it all—and clicked Reset, confirmed that I wanted a clean slate, and then rebooted again, and voila! Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, and Skype all went back to working as expected.
I find it interesting that something out of kilter in Internet Explorer could affect Edge and Skype, too. IE may officially be on the way out the door, but its tendrils are apparently still wrapped around some fairly important bits of the Windows operating system.