can someone help me with stupid microsoft edge?

I've got this program I use for work.  One of the things it does is connect me to an online service that I log into to get certain information.  To get certain other information from the online service, I have to open a browser, type in the address/click on my bookmark, and log in.  Every time I log in, I have to go through the 2 factor authentication, which is annoying since I have to do it twice in row - once when the online service is opened through my program and once when I open the browser and go to the bookmarked site.  This could be avoided if I was able to open another tab in the same window my work program opened.  Then the online service would detect I was already logged in.

The problem is that my program only seems to function with Edge and the window it opens has no menu, no way to open another tab.  Is this just the way it is when the browser is opened this way?  Here's what the window looks like, heavily redacted, cause work stuff.

Edit:  I should add that right clicking at the top doesn't bring up anything useful and I can't shorten the address bar (in case anyone thinks the menu ellipsis thing might be hidden there).

I can't really help you, but maybe by bumping the thread someone who can might see it. I assume you've seen this (from microscoft edge)

There are many ways to customize how your Microsoft Edge browser looks, feels, and behaves. You can change the browser's appearance (themes, toolbar, display fonts), set how a new tab page looks, and choose the startup behavior. To access these settings:

At the top corner of the browser, select Settings and more  > Settings .

Under Settings, do any of the following:

To change appearance, select Appearance and make the changes you want to your default theme, zoom, toolbar, and fonts.
To change startup behavior, select On startup, and then select what you want Microsoft Edge to display on startup.
To set how the page looks when you open a new tab, select New tab page, then select Customize, and in the window, select the options you want for Page content and Page layout.

You can also personalize the new tab page in Microsoft Edge.

Above the address bar, select the + button to open a new tab.
At the top corner of the new tab page, select Page Settings.
Choose your page layout, background image, quick links, and more.
Scroll down to see your news feed and select Personalize to choose your interests.

It looks like your settings have been changed already somehow to take away these menu features.

Microsoft Edge is hopeless.  That and Google Chrome are, IMHO, designed to make life difficult by being intrusive.  I have removed both from my computer.  Both of these are content blocked as spam on my computer.  I have a tracking detection program and ad blocker which regularly show both are tracking what I do and adding unsolicited advertising and links.  If you can work around it, try a program like firefox. When working online, I have many tabs open.  Now, for example, I have 5 Permies tabs open as well as other information tabs.  Two level authentication is not a bad thing these days because of spammers and trackers.  I am happy with this level of security.

Happy hunting

i use edge (it uses a quarter of the ram of chrome and i decided to test it on my newest laptop, it's really no different)...... and that is totally not how it looks to me- i have a bar with tools and the ellipse and the settings widget to the right of the up-down scroll bar on the right.
But that's also not what the top and tabs look like to me either. it almost looks like the full screen option. can you go into the app settings and see if you're using some outdated version? i know there was a big update recently that fixed as well as screwed up a few things on my workstation, maybe there is some way to access settings from there?
Also, Nancy may be right- are you using a version your work has fooled with somehow?

(another way i can open a new tab, btw, is to right click on that edge icon you have on the bottom row, where you have your icons there, i have an option to open a new tab or a new anonymous window, maybe you can do that too?)

Nancy Reading wrote:

It looks like your settings have been changed already somehow to take away these menu features.

Thanks, Nancy. I have the settings where I want them and in every other situation the window opens with menu and whatever else I want visible. It does seem to be something specific to the browser being opened by my work program.

All our Company Laptops are now on Edge. Google is out and blocked.
Worst step they ever did.

Paul Fookes wrote:Microsoft Edge is hopeless.  That and Google Chrome are, IMHO, designed to make life difficult by being intrusive. . .  Two level authentication is not a bad thing these days because of spammers and trackers.  I am happy with this level of security.

I wholeheartedly agree. Generally I use Firefox and have it set as my default, but my work program just keeps using edge. Since I never touch the thing I didn't bother uninstalling it, but maybe I should. That might force my work program to use something less offensive. I'll try that out today at work, since it'll probably be a quiet day. Thanks for the idea.

I'm generally fine with 2FA, but when I have to do it twice in a row to log into the same thing, it's annoying. In addition to my password, I answer two security questions and have a code texted to me. That's a bit much when doubled, and I do it many many times a day.

Tereza Okava wrote:

(another way i can open a new tab, btw, is to right click on that edge icon you have on the bottom row, where you have your icons there, i have an option to open a new tab or a new anonymous window, maybe you can do that too?)

Hmmm. I didn't think to try opening a new tab from the taskbar. I'll try that today.

I think I'll try uninstalling the horrible program entirely, but if I need to reinstall it, I'll end up with the most recent version and will be able to see if that was a factor.

In pretty much any modern browser, the keyboard shortcut for a new tab is "ctrl T".

I suspect that it won't work however.
It sounds like you're using a company VPN and then logging into the companies intranet. These will probably be 2 separate authentication sessions (one session inside the other) and so it won't matter if you do open another tab, it still will require the second authentication.

You say you need to do this multiple times a day. Is this because you close the edge browser?
Have you tried leaving it open and just locking your screen rather than closing the session?  

James Alun wrote:In pretty much any modern browser, the keyboard shortcut for a new tab is "ctrl T".

I suspect that it won't work however.
It sounds like you're using a company VPN and then logging into the companies intranet. These will probably be 2 separate authentication sessions (one session inside the other) and so it won't matter if you do open another tab, it still will require the second authentication.

You say you need to do this multiple times a day. Is this because you close the edge browser?
Have you tried leaving it open and just locking your screen rather than closing the session?  

It's a good thought, but no, there is no VPN or intranet. This is my own business, so I know what's in place there. I'm just logging into a (very secure) website. I don't know exactly what the work software I have is doing, though. I'm the admin, so I have access to all the settings, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere to set default programs, which would allow me to bypass edge altogether.

Yes, if I leave edge open, I don't need to log in again. The problem is that my work program opens a new edge window each time, and it doesn't seem to care what's still open in the other windows. I have played with settings.  The website has specific information that is available only when accessed through my work program, so I have to log in through my work program every single time I access the website, which can be 20-40 times a day, depending on how many clients I interact with.

I need other, more general information that I can only get by logging on to the website outside of the work program.  I use a different browser for this, so I can leave it open and cut down on the number of times I need to log in there. The website times out, so it's not a once and done thing, but i probably only have to log in on that one 10-15 times a day.

Something has changed either with edge or with my work program, cause it wasn't this bad last year. I used to be able to log in through my work program, then open a new tab in the same window to get the more general info, and not have to go through the whole process again.  Plus, edge was  able to recognize that I was  logged in in another window, so as long as I left the most recent window open, I was already logged in in the new window my program opened. I could avoid a lot of the timeouts this way, too. Given what I know about my work program, I'm guessing it's edge that has changed.

I'll try out all the suggestions when I get to work in a bit. Thanks, everyone.

James Alun wrote:It sounds like you're using a company VPN and then logging into the companies intranet. These will probably be 2 separate authentication sessions (one session inside the other) and so it won't matter if you do open another tab, it still will require the second authentication.  

I agree. My work has a number of legacy systems mashed together. They don't talk to each other. I often have to do separate logins with 2FA.

One thought: how strict are the privacy settings in your browser? On some machines with Edge, I had to allow some cookies/plugins for the sites to work. Since these machines are dedicated to one client and I don't use them for personal stuff, I don't really care.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:

One thought: how strict are the privacy settings in your browser? On some machines with Edge, I had to allow some cookies/plugins for the sites to work. Since these machines are dedicated to one client and I don't use them for personal stuff, I don't really care.

I did play around with privacy settings when this first started bugging me, but I don't remember what I did anymore. I'll do some more playing.

Well, I played around with some things and nothing made a difference, so I decided to uninstall it. Turns out I've got the version that's built into windows and can't be easily uninstalled. So I looked up what I needed to type in command prompt and did that. Apparently there's more stuff you need to do to make sure it doesn't get automatically reinstalled by windows, but I wanted to see what my work program would do first.

So I uninstalled edge, then went into my work program to connect to the internet to see if it would be okay using Firefox.  When I hit the connect button, the usual information box came up where it tells me what it's doing and gives me error codes if something goes wrong.  It took longer than usual to show anything, then I got a not responding error, then it showed it was trying again, then it seemed to freeze for a bit, and then... it opened edge.

While I was making some nasty remarks about microsoft, my employee phoned. I told her what I was doing and she informed me that she uses edge all the time. She's not great with computers and I've already thrown quite a bit of new stuff at her to learn, so I don't want to make her use a browser she's unfamiliar with on top of that.

I guess I'm stuck with the bastard 😒