Which update impact might Edge Enterprise have if running a non updated 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe'?

[SwimmeRM]

Hello,

could anyone please be so kind to tell me something about which update impact might Edge Enterprise (Stable) have if on my OS there's still running a non updated version of 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe'?

Here are more details about what I verified. When I installed Edge Enterprise it was v92.0.902.73 (Stable) and I found that almost immediately after initial downloading of 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' v1.3.147.37 it downloaded latest v1.3.151.27 and removed contents of 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\1.3.147.37'.

So far all might seems to be fine, but after checking that 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' also configured own 2 instances with Schedule service, I verified the running instance(s) (because sometimes there are 2 executing) are still the older v1.3.147.37 one(s) (and yes, if wondering about it it's 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe').

Now so far my Edge Enterprise (Stable) has reached v93.0.961.38 (Official build) (64-bit) anyway but since yesterday afternoon v93.0.961.44 was self downloaded and already installed where appropriate (well that's according to C:\Windows\Temp\msedge_installer.log contents) but even if I completely close all v93.0.961.38 windows there are 2 msedge.exe instances that remain still running.

OK, I know this might probably depend from 'Startup boost' but I left it disabled since the beginning and a part having 'Use hardware acceleration when available' still enabled since the beginning the only other setting I only temporarily enabled was 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' (but I've left disabled since after I verified it was creating dumps whenever my laptop OS was being suspended into memory as I also reported in another report I sent yesterday but still under review).

I'm wondering if a  possible side effect of wrong 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' version might even be that whenever I check Edge version, the rolling icon near 'Checking for updates' never stops (and so far only with 1st self update from v92.0.902.73 to v92.0.902.84 I saw a proper notification that an Edge update already took place and I simply had to restart it to run updated version),

So does anyone have comments to let me know if what I reported here and unexpectedly delayed version update in particular, is indeed normal and expected (any more ideas or suggestions to definitely fix/avoid the rest I reported are very welcome too ;) ).

P.S. This time I'm also avoiding animated emoji since their size in discussions preview indeed seem to be bigger and maybe disturbing more then I've ever expected... :-S 

Best Regards

Rob

[#2]

@SwimmeRM I can confirm your findings, that the copy of MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe is not the latest version (mine is 1.3.117.15) with the latest one resides in a folder, and the same is true for Google Update, so I will expect this is the default behavior. I have no problems updating both browsers so far, if you cannot update you may want to do a repair.

Process Explorer screenshot showing the MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe running.

Yes, Edge and Chrome are installed in "Program Files (x86)" while they are already 64-bit...

Regards,

Ken

[#3]

@KenChongOK, many thanks for confirming that what I reported seems to be normal (while it logically shouldn't  :-)) ) and also that other effects I noticed were simply inherited from Chromium port).

About update delay to v93.0.961.44 I was experiencing, this morning I better verified what was preventing that to complete.
It was 'Startup boost' that even if already disabled and with only 'Use hardware acceleration when available' left enabled was leaving 2 msedge.exe instances still running and also creating a dump after I resumed my laptop that was only suspended in memory (and even before any MS Edge window was restarted), and about this I already sent 1 feedback (specific) and 1 also another (only minorly related to specific one).
Now about 'Use hardware acceleration when available' my very basic assumption and subsequent related understanding was that it simply meant 'OK, if any component you have has HW acceleration embedded just be ready to use it' (in my case it should just be laptop internal Realtek NIC card, and its NVIDIA GPU with its own 3GB DDR3 dedicated video memory for sure, but maybe also only minorly for its internal Intel Centrino Wi-Fi miniPCI card) while from such result its real meaning is 'OK, if any component you got has HW acceleration embedded then alway just start immediately using it without interruptions' but the problem is that from result I saw (and reported here) so far this setting is not aware of any already pending update needing to complete (at least until v93.0.961.38, with now correctly updated v93.0.961.44 I still have to check) and so it simply also prevented it to complete properly.

So now, if with v93.0.961.44 still hasn't happened, my hope is that that 'Startup boost' (disabled) with even just only 'Use hardware acceleration when available' enabled (maybe a slightly even better rewording would be 'Always use hardware acceleration when available') can soon be made fully Edge update aware so that it would also be able to switch to 'whenever an update is just pending MS Edge restart to complete, then temporarily close my background instances anyway' and then 'simply self-restart again my background boosting instances after some delay' while 'also making sure that pending version upgrade indeed took place as intended and expected'.

P.S. About 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' I hope it can be fixed soon to ensure running version is updated correctly, I noticed v1.3.151.27 also comes with MicrosoftEdgeUpdateBroker.exe, MicrosoftEdgeUpdateComRegisterShell64.exe, MicrosoftEdgeUpdateCore.exe and MicrosoftEdgeUpdateOnDemand.exe additional components (& with very interesting names too) but for now I'll avoid to try to use them anyway (unless obviously anyone else might be willing :-)) to add just some little more basic details to let us all know about their intended proper usage...)

Regards
Rob

[#4]

@KenChong again

OK now I also made more tests with v93.0.961.44 and maybe I found a repro of what I indeed already saw earlier even with v93.0.961.38.
Now I started with all 'Startup boost' settings disabled, then enabled both 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and 'Use hardware acceleration when available' (and when this last one also displayed a [ Restart ] button below option I decided to restart immediately with it).
Then after restart (MS Edge indeed reopened into same edge://settings/system page) I only disabled 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and again left 'Use hardware acceleration when available' enabled (just like I did with v93.0.961.38 when I 1st succeeded in stopping new dump creation every time after my laptop resumed from suspension in memory) and then closed MS Edge again and immediately I verified that again it left no msedge.exe instances running.
But at this point I'm also wondering what reasons might have left those 2 running instances in the past.
Maybe it happened because at least 1 time when I closed MS Edge I may have left some tabs with my account authenticated and validated still opened (i.e. probably Outlook.com and MS Edge Insider Community ones even if they might temporarily been left in a suspended state because I set tabs to fade to sleep after '5 minutes of inactivity') and so MS Edge might have tried to always keep status for those validated sessions as still active even if later those tabs were already simply closed properly (so even if without really signing off my account).
So if this assumption might be correct (even partially) then when 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' is disabled MS Edge should probably also need to receive some more specific user additional confirmation that he/she would still really want to continue to keep any validated session status as active even for those validated tabs that were already closed without their account signed-off properly.

Regards
Rob

[#5]

@KenChongagain
(this time after proper selection of Reply to you in this page and save method for this post ),
Ok, I think I made another repro and then found another known method that enables back those 2 msedge.exe background instances to run again.
This time it was enough to visualize 'Help and feedback' -> 'About Microsoft Edge' (so edge://settings/help) where rolling icon and 'Checking for updates' message is displayed to ensure that 1st 2 running instances of msedge.exe change color in SysInternals Process Explorer from brown background (typical for Jobs) to light gray background (typical for Own Processes) and then still remain running in background when closing all MS Edge windows.
Once again to revert back to having no msedge.exe background instances always running is :

A) I found this part to always be the fastest to use (because of the 2 automated Edge self Restarts) if the 2 background instances were mistakely enabled (in 1st step) or are left around anyway but they are obviously not needed (i.e. avoiding unneeded dumps when resuming laptop left suspended into memory was my need)

- always ensure that 'Open tabs from the previous session' is enabled properly,

- enable 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and  contemporarily disable 'Use hardware acceleration when available',
- then choose [ Restart ] button that appears below 'Use hardware acceleration when available',
- then when Edge has restarted from same settings page disable 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and enable 'Use hardware acceleration when available',
- then choose [ Restart ] button that again appears below 'Use hardware acceleration when available', and voilà :D 

B) this part will work this way if the 2 background instances were mistakely enabled (in 1st step) but are obviously not needed (i.e. avoiding unneeded dumps when resuming laptop left suspended into memory)

- always ensure that 'Open tabs from the previous session' is enabled properly,

- enable both 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and 'Use hardware acceleration when available',
- then choose [ Restart ] button that appears below 'Use hardware acceleration when available',
- then when Edge has restarted from same settings page disable 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' and leave 'Use hardware acceleration when available' still enabled,
- then close settings tab, check that 'Open tabs from the previous session' was enabled properly then close Edge again;

C) probably easier to accomplish if the 2 msedge.exe background running instances were just simply enabled by displaying 'Checking for updates' and 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' was disabled while only 'Use hardware acceleration when available' was still enabled,

- always ensure that 'Open tabs from the previous session' is enabled properly,

- still leaving 'Continue running background extensions and apps when Microsoft Edge is closed' disabled also disable 'Use hardware acceleration when available',

- then choose [ Restart ] button that appears below 'Use hardware acceleration when available',

- but please note that at this point Edge will indeed close but will just not restart automatically (this is what happened to me few minutes ago :-(( also with the 2 msedge.exe instances still running),

- then manually restart Edge and enable 'Use hardware acceleration when available',

- then choose [ Restart ] button that appears below 'Use hardware acceleration when available',

Last final step common for both A & B & C)

- at this point with SysInternals Process Explorer it's easy to check that no msedge.exe instances remain still running 8-) (after this you can obviously manually restart Edge once again if needing to continue working with it or you simply just can't live without it... :-o)

Regards
Rob

[#6]

@KenChong again (& other insiders as well...),

another update for your awareness of what else I've verified.

Even if running 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' (with /broker option on my laptop) is not latest yesterday I also additionally noticed that anyway it's already running together with msedgeupdate.dll from latest v1.3.151.27 update subfolder that was also received during my installation of Edge Enterprise, so now I'm expecting that most of real versioning logic might indeed be there.

And this also (side) explains quite good why ITMT my Edge Enterprise already received and installed properly v93.0.961.47 since 9/13 (late afternoon in my TZ).

P.S. Only issue (indeed quite annoying) I see at this point is the never ending rolling icon that appears near 'Checking for updates' and that so far was no more able to properly tell me that another update was available or even that it already took place and it's only just awaiting me to restart Edge (& so far I only saw this message while I was still working into Edge when 1st update took place from v92.0.902.73 to v92.0.902.84 :o ).

Regards

Rob

[#7]

Glad that you fixed the problem!

Regards,
Ken

[#8]

@KenChong 

Ehm, I'm not so sure yet. When I opened my question/discussion I was simply unsure about what to expect, but unluckily so far I'm still not 100% if any more problems might be found.
Maybe a known one might be the one I documented of an update still only remaining in pending state because of the 2 msedge.exe instances still unexpectedly running in background even if this wasn't really expected to happen (and its additional dump creation after OS resuming from being suspended into memory).

Maybe another is the (annoying) always indefinitely rolling icon seen while 'Checking for updates' is displayed... (this because IMHO if after some seconds Edge should be still unaware of updates availability then it also should give user a proper message...)

Regards

Rob

[#9]

@KenChong again (& other insiders as well...),

if interested I've re-edited again my past (Sep 13 2021 08:51 AM) reply having steps A) & B) so that now to avoid the 2 msedge.exe background instances a much faster new step A) exists while old ones were shifted to B) and C) respectively.

P.S. FYI I'm also about to 'Send feedback' (bug) also the always rolling icon 'Checking for updates' that I see because of the different already known typical statuses I found into support KB article 'MS Edge update settings' (a correction was needed here because 'Troubleshooting tips for installing and updating MS Edge' indeed only contains some status messages but those can be found in particular conditions).

Best Regards

Rob

[#10 · Accepted solution]

@KenChong (again & other insiders interested as well...)

In addition to correcting my last week reply (Sep 18 2021 07:05 AM) with main KB article I was really considering with Edge known update statuses, I can finally confirm I found a definitive answer also to my last past assumption about the (annoying) always indefinitely rolling icon seen while 'Checking for updates' remained displayed forever.

That was indeed another issue and only today I also definitely discovered it was related to running a 'partially only' updated 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' (again by 'partially only' I mean to indeed have previous 'MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' v1.3.147.37 still running one together with only its main supporting DLL 'msedgeupdate.dll' correctly updated to v1.3.151.27 as expected, but nevertheless and strangely enough :-s :p inside 1st main log file listed below reported version is v1.3.151.27).

So for everyone's sake here's how I found it out and then finally & definitely solved it (apologies in advance if it may seem long, but I'm already summarizing all at my best).

At first I had to spent quite some time checking contents of the 2 main log files updated regularly (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Log\MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.log) and only during updates (C:\Windows\Temp\msedge_installer.log) and since 1st file still continued to be updated properly even while 'Checking for updates' status never changed and I indeed received Edge updates, I decided to only focus on it.

So this (early) morning I found which component ('MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe' /broker) normally logging inside it, instead stopped updating it properly (since 08/20) even if it was still running since then (& probably simply just stuck in memory).

After checking all handles it had open (& luckily not locking itself either), I renamed it then copied its updated v1.3.151.27 version in same execution path (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\MicrosoftEdgeUpdate.exe) and assigned same file ownership (SYSTEM) of old file, then manually forced closing all few handles it still had opened (those listed by handle64 SysInternals as File at 1st, then all remaining listed as Section) and finally forced closing it.

I was also quite surprised to see that it self-started running again for about 14minutes more, but this time it was indeed v1.3.151.27 updated version and at the end it also properly quitted from memory (as typically expectable and already done in the past).

At the end I started Edge (still v93.0.961.52) then opened Settings -> Help and feedback -> About Microsoft Edge and voilà 'Checking for updates' status changed almost immediately since it found a new update and started downloading it, so once it completed I pressed (expected) [ Restart ] button and so now I'm already on v94.0.992.31 :D (but quite strangely enough new 'welcome tab' that self opened still looks empty).

Regards

Rob