Confirmed on the machine that started this: an 'Edge blocker' utility was
in the way, and unblocking Edge fixed the launch.
Those tools work by registering a Debugger entry under Image File
Execution Options for msedge.exe and msedgewebview2.exe, so Windows
refuses to run the process. The runtime is installed and registers its
version quite happily — which is why the logs showed WebView2 present —
and then never starts. OpsLog draws its whole interface with that engine,
so the window never opened: no error, no crash, a process sitting there
doing nothing.
That entry is read at startup now and said plainly, in the log and on
screen, with the one thing that helps: unblock Edge in the tool that
blocked it. Reinstalling OpsLog cannot fix a machine in this state, and
that is where an unexplained silence sends people.
Also logs the Windows build and which Edge policies are set — value names
only, never their contents: a policy key holds URLs and account names
that are nobody's business here.
'The Evergreen installer will not install either' moves the problem out
of OpsLog's reach: the runtime is a Windows component, and on a managed,
offline or otherwise locked-down machine it may simply refuse.
Microsoft publishes the same runtime in a FIXED VERSION form — a folder
an application carries and points at, needing no installation and no
administrator. That is exactly this case, so OpsLog now looks for it
beside its own executable and uses it when it is there. The versioned
subfolder the download unpacks into is handled, because asking someone to
flatten it by hand is one more step to get wrong on a machine where
nothing starts.
No setting for it: that would be a question asked of the one operator
least able to answer it. The folder is either there or it is not.
The startup log also records the Windows build — the first thing anyone
diagnosing a runtime that will not install is going to ask for.
His startup.log stops after 'data dir ok', which rules out the two faults
already covered and leaves the window creation itself — where a missing
WebView2 runtime lands, sometimes as a silent exit rather than an error
anyone can print.
So the runtime's version is read from where it registers itself (both
hives, and the 32-bit view where a per-machine install usually lands) and
written BEFORE the window is attempted: 'WebView2: not found' answers the
whole question in one line. Breadcrumbs now also mark entering wails.Run,
reaching OnStartup, and the window painting — which places any launch
that produces nothing between two known points.
rouggy