Hi everyone,
I’m encountering a frustrating issue with Epic Games Launcher that seems to be related to my browser settings, and I believe it ties into the problem discussed in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcBrowser/comments/1eop3oe/problem_with_arc_browser_and_epic_games_launcher/
My main problem is that when Epic Games Launcher tries to open a link, it keeps trying to use Arc Browser, which was previously my default browser but is no longer. This makes it impossible to proceed within the launcher.
After some investigation, I’ve noticed a discrepancy in the Windows Registry regarding default browser settings. Specifically, the values in these two keys are different:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http\UserChoiceHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Associations\UrlAssociations\http\UserChoiceLatest
I suspect that the UserChoice key holds outdated information. It seems to contain the data for my old default browser (Arc), and the Epic Games Launcher appears to be relying on this outdated information. I confirmed this because the hash value for my Arc browser matches the hash listed under UserChoice.
The frustrating part is that even after I’ve changed my default browser through Windows settings, the UserChoice information doesn’t update and continues to point to my old default browser.
I believe this issue might be a consequence of a Windows 11 update, as discussed in this blog post: https://kolbi.cz/blog/2025/04/20/userchoicelatest-microsofts-new-protection-for-file-type-associations/
Has anyone else experienced this, or found a workaround? Any help would be greatly appreciated!