Default browser setting keeps reverting to Edge

pewa said:

May I suggest you first back up your drivers. Then do a fresh install of Windows 11 offline.

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I was offline when I installed Windows.

pewa said:

Without going online, back up whatever drivers that your system allows you to back up. Having done that, go online for a second so that you can activate Windows. Once it is activated, disconnect the internet connection immediately.

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That's pretty much what I did.

pewa said:

Now back up your system drive (C:/Drive) to an external hard disk.

With Windows safely backed up, you can go ahead and experiment as you can always restore from your backup image if things do not go your way. Does that make sense?

That’s how I get to learn stuff. I have a backup image for each and everyone of my 7 laptops.

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Thanks. Now, let's get on with experimenting, please. Or, preferably, finding the culprit that is messing with my Windows configuration.

wpcoe said:

Next thought is to stress test the CPU. Back in the day I used to use Microsoft's Burn Test. Is that still a good option to stress test the CPU? If not, what is?

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Correction: Intel's Burn Test

It seems the latest version of Intel BurnTest is v.2.54, which is from 2012. So, what is the current/best way to stress test a CPU?

I just ran the (elderly) Intel Burn Test for 5 iterations at Maximum and it passed.

When I googled Burn Test, I clicked on a promising link at the top of the results. A tragic mistake. My computer is infected with something now. Based on comments from experts on another ElevenForum thread that Microsoft's native antivirus and firewall were all you need, I had not installed Avast Antivirus and Comodo Firewall. Microsoft's antivirus failed to stop this...

So, I'm about to wipe the entire hard drive, including the data partition and the old Recovery partitions that came on the computer from Asus. I will install Windows from a completely naked hard drive this time. And, I'm going to install Avast Antivirus and Comodo Firewall...

I just wiped the hard drive of all partitions, reinstalled Win11, recreated the data partition and copied back all my data, reinstalled apps (except Avast Antivirus and Comodo Firewall) and within hours of installing Vivaldi as the default browser, the browser already reverted to Edge as the default again.