Why is edge running in the background after copilot installation?

Anonymous
2023-10-01T02:12:28+00:00

As the title says, I was wondering why Edge is running in the background after Windows Update installed and I disabled Copilot from the taskbar. Edge's settings right now are like this:

Sidebar: disabled

Show Bing chat on sidebar: disabled

Startup Boos: disabled

Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed: disabled

And now I found this running in the background with the browser closed:

That's not even the browser's updater service. I stopped the task and it opened itself again a few minutes later.

As if the fake widgets I don't like or use are always running in the background despite many things I've tried, now I have Edge using system resources for no apparent reason.

Please help me find a solution to this problem.

Microsoft Edge | Other | Windows 11

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-25T22:28:23+00:00

    That doesn't help either...

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-14T23:15:41+00:00

    I have been plagued by this issue for a while now, I was messing around with my task manager and noticed something.

    I have Startup boost and background extensions turned off, so theoretically my Edge should close when I exit the program.

    Edge IS killing all processes when I close it, every. single. time.

    I start encountering issues when I use the silly little copilot (that I actually like). Edge no longer closes when I open it and then close it.

    So the bug is that edge does not close when you dismiss the copilot, that is all they need to resolve.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-08T17:54:17+00:00

    I didn't understand any of this. Add a new key - what?

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-02-09T06:15:51+00:00

    My configuration or issue may not apply to all, but I stumbled upon a workaround that seems to be working for me...for now. Basically, like everyone else, even after disabling "Startup Boost" and "Continue Running Background Extensions..." Edge processes would continue running in the background after closing the main browser window. I do not launch or use Copilot from the Windows 11 UI. So it is not a Copilot issue for me. Here's what I found:

    I have both the Edge Beta and Edge channels installed. Edge Beta is my default browser. However, I noticed that when I changed the default browser to Edge (Settings > Default Apps > type "Edge" and click on it and set it as "Default" via the button at the top), and I launched and closed Edge Beta manually, all the background processes would close. However, when Edge Beta was set as the default browser, the background processes persisted after closing the browser.

    Upon further investigation, I noted that when the default browser is changed, the only file associations that seemed to be set to the new default browser are:

    .htm

    .html

    HTTP

    HTTPS

    So, what I found was that setting the default browser from Edge Beta to Edge (or from Edge to Edge Beta) fixed the issue of background processes persisting after closing the non-default browser. But, in my case, as Edge Beta is my browser of choice, if I went back in to Settings > Default Apps > typed "Edge Beta" and individually changed/assigned the above associations to "Edge Beta", it is now effectively the default browser, and most importantly, in my case, all background Edge Beta processes would also terminate after closing all browser windows. Additionally, there were no instances of the regular Edge channel processes running as I had not manually started that Browser channel.

    So bottom line. play around with your default app browser settings. For those who only have one channel (i.e. Edge stable), toggle the default browser off and on with Chrome or firefox or something else (or maybe download Edge Beta just for this test), and see if it helps your issue.

    But the underlying problem remains. Microsoft should really fix this annoyance and resource hog.

    I hope this helps someone.

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