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Windows monthly updates removes Firefox from my Task Bar every month

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  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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Every month when windows 10 updates it removes Firefox icon from taskbar and replaces it with a blank icon which does not operate . When i look through program listing the Firefox application is also not shown. always have to replace the taskbar item from the Firefox icon on my Desktop. Is this a case of Microsoft pushing MIcrosoft Edge on us?

Every month when windows 10 updates it removes Firefox icon from taskbar and replaces it with a blank icon which does not operate . When i look through program listing the Firefox application is also not shown. always have to replace the taskbar item from the Firefox icon on my Desktop. Is this a case of Microsoft pushing MIcrosoft Edge on us?

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Hello,

Certain Firefox problems can be solved by performing a Clean reinstall. This means you remove your Firefox program files and then reinstall Firefox. This process does not remove your Firefox profile data (such as bookmarks and passwords), since that information is stored in a different location.

To do a clean reinstall of Firefox, please follow these steps: Note: You might want to print these steps or view them in another browser.

  1. Download the latest Desktop version of Firefox from mozilla.org (or choose the download for your operating system and language from this page) and save the setup file to your computer.
  2. After the download finishes, close all Firefox windows (or open the Firefox menu New Fx Menu and click the close button Close 29).
  3. Delete the Firefox installation folder, which is located in one of these locations, by default:
    • Windows: (Note: Check both folders.)
      • C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox
      • C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox
    • Mac: Delete Firefox from the Applications folder.
    • Linux: If you installed Firefox with the distro-based package manager, you should use the same way to uninstall it - see Install Firefox on Linux. If you downloaded and installed the binary package from the Firefox download page, simply remove the folder firefox in your home directory.
  4. Now, go ahead and reinstall Firefox:
    1. Double-click the downloaded installation file and go through the steps of the installation wizard.
    2. Once the wizard is finished, choose to directly open Firefox after clicking the Finish button.

More information about reinstalling Firefox can be found here.

WARNING: Do not use a third party uninstaller as part of this process. Doing so could permanently delete your Firefox profile data, including but not limited to, extensions, cache, cookies, bookmarks, personal settings and saved passwords. These cannot be easily recovered unless they have been backed up to an external device! See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles.

Please report back to say if this helped you!

Thank you.

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You can check for issues with the Windows icon cache. Try to rebuild the icon cache (IconCache.db).

  1. Open the Task Manager (Shift+Ctrl+ESC)
  2. In the Process tab, right-click on the Explorer.exe process and select End Process.
  3. Open the file picker via "File > New Task (Run)" and click the Browse button.
  4. Type or Paste %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local or %LocalAppData% in the File name field (AppData is a hidden folder).
  5. Select the IconCache.db file and use "Delete" in the right-click context menu to delete the file.
  6. After the IconCache.db file has been deleted, start a new explorer.exe process via "File > New Task" to get the desktop and Taskbar back.

Note that IconCache.db is a hidden file, so make sure you can see hidden files.

  • #MK#/Show_hidden_files_and_folders