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Installing Firefox breaks IE and other programs on Windows

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I'm running Windows 8.1 professional 64-bit on a virtual machine on VMWare. When I install windows everything works fine, I can browse the web using IE, download updates on other programs I have installed.

As soon as I install Firefox it breaks IE so I can no longer use it. Moreover, it stops a lot of other programs from being able to update. Uninstall doesn't resolve the problem as it doesn't seem to go back to normal.

What is causing this to happen? And how can I fix it?

I'm running Windows 8.1 professional 64-bit on a virtual machine on VMWare. When I install windows everything works fine, I can browse the web using IE, download updates on other programs I have installed. As soon as I install Firefox it breaks IE so I can no longer use it. Moreover, it stops a lot of other programs from being able to update. Uninstall doesn't resolve the problem as it doesn't seem to go back to normal. What is causing this to happen? And how can I fix it?

All Replies (2)

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What happens when you can no longer use it? Please provide a few more details so we can narrow down what might be causing this?

If you have changed the default browser, you can change this in the control panel under default programs. But if this is not the case, what do you see that is not working?

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Upon installing Firefox I simply get the message on Internet Explorer that "this page can't be displayed". Not only that but it seems to break other services at random. So my World of Warcraft Launcher can no longer connect or update, though I can connect to the WoW servers through the actual wow.exe game file. Moreover programs such as PuTTY and Dropbox continue working.

I've changed IE to the default program and done all that, but nothing seems to fix it once I've installed Firefox. I know this could we be a problem with VMWare but I really have no idea where to even begin with diagnosing this issue or fixing it. As I mentioned above, a clean install of Windows fixes all of this. So it's definitely working as intended before Firefox is installed. It's only once it goes on that these problems begin and can't be undone.