I have had clients complain about Internet Explorer doing weird things and believe that over the years that I had seen it all but recently, I received a ticket saying that Internet Explorer’s InPrivate Browsing is not working.
Usually, when this incident occurs, it is by Chrome Users that are utilizing the CTRL + SHIFT + N keyboard combination for the Google Chrome browser instead of CTRL + SHIFT + P for the Internet Explorer and Legacy Edge browser.
Troubleshooting
To see if the issue was on their profile only, I switched to the local Administrator account and the issue was there as well. Using the tip to reinstall Windows Media Player when it has issues, I did the same for Internet Explorer by disabling it in the Control Panel but the issue returned once Internet Explorer was made enabled. My next step was to upgrade Windows 10 as it would install Microsoft Internet Explorer cleanly then import the previous settings but this could take hours and possibly import the anomaly that is causing the issue so I searched for a standalone version of Internet Explorer (for any versions of Windows 7) and was fortunate to find one which resolved the issue.
The Cause
So what caused the InPrivate function to break? The anomaly is currently unknown to me but I am attempting to recreate it randomly in my test laboratory. Some possible causes are addons/plugins, shutting down the browser or OS incorrectly, and malware.
