My powershell script solution for a weird error that prevented chrome to run on windows 11. (probably 10 as well)
Let me explain...
I recognize that Windows (11,10) is a very complex system. With that said, IT SUCKS! WINDOWS TOTALLY SUCK! Now that I got that out of the way, I'll continue to the issue at hand...
For some reason, a month or 2 after I upgraded to Windows 11, my Chrome stopped working. It was bizarre, it's still bizarre. I can't remember when it stopped, but MONTHS ago, it stopped working. I switched to firefox until the same thing happened. At that point, I needed my Chrome browser back. I did the following :
- Googled solutions
- Tried a bunch of solutions
- uninstalled chrome a hyberbolic amount of times
- reinstalled chrome a hyberbolic amount of times
- Event log research
- Tried a bunch more solutions
- uninstalled chrome a hyberbolic amount of times, again
- reinstalled chrome a hyberbolic amount of times, again
- gave up
- got back in!
- decided to fix it.
Ok fine! So what I've been able to gather is, User32.dll is causing a fault with Chrome and won't allow it to launch for whatever reason. I'm not a windows programmer, so I'm at a loss to understand the nuances of the error.
However, if you rename the chrome.exe binary, to something else, it would work. But here's the issue that caused.
If you wanted chrome to update, it would fail. and get all weird. So I had a brilliant IDEA! If you copy the binary, with an underscore preceding the name, then create a symbolic link of "chrome.exe" ==> "_chrome.exe", then the update works, everthing works, until the browser gets updated again...
This powershell script has been made to make the "fixing" process easy with one click. I even have an idea that if I can find the event ID that launches when chrome is finished updating, maybe I can just use windows task man to listen for that trigger and run this fix script so that next time I boot my laptop up, it just fixes it. I'm not there yet, but I'll keep you updated!
Before you run this script blindly, ask yourself, does what I describe in the "problem" section sound like a problem you may have? if yes, and you're willing to take this risk, then ok, proceed!
- Ensure you have administrative rights to your profile (or an windows administrator could help you)
- Download/install the lastest Microsoft Terminal
- Download the chrome-fix.ps1
I asssume:
- that Chrome was/is installed to it's default location
- Windows Terminal can "run as administrator" just fine
- Windows Terminal installed to it's default location
- You know how to set the execution policy in powershell.
Do the following to run the script:
- Load up Windows Terminal as Administrator
- Make sure the windows terminal is using the powershell 7 profile
- CD (change directory) to the location you downloaded the chrome-fix.ps1 file.
- Run the script using this command
.\chrome-fix.ps1 - If all is well, the script will run, fixing the chrome binary using the method in the intro.
If you have any issues, post them on the issues page.