Solved Windows 8 Metro apps not opening links if browser open.

Windows 8.1. Metro apps do not open links if the web browser is already open. Tried using both Chrome and IE as the default browser and same issue persists in both.

Example: Chrome is open with a webpage already loaded. Open Mail, new message has link in it. Clicking link switches to Chrome and minimizes the app, but does not actually open the page. If I close Chrome and go back to Mail, clicking on the link will open Chrome and load the link properly.

Issue persists after reinstalling Windows. Fully updated, no security software running during testing.

At a total loss for what might be causing this. :shock:

Just in case it proves useful here are the system details (all drivers are current):

Main system hardware:
Windows 8.1 Pro
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 (rev.1 with latest BIOS)
AMD FX-8350 4.0 Black Edition (not overclocked)
EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
16GB 1866 MHz G.Skill Ripjaws (2 x 8GB)
Kingston 128GB SSD (Windows / High performance software drive)
Kingston 128GB SSD (High intensity games drive)
Western Digital Black 1.5TB HDD (Storage / Software drive)
Western Digital Red 3TB HDD (Media drive)
LG DVD-RW ODD
Linksys WMP600n 802.11n Dual Band wireless adapter
Corsair HX850i PSU
Rosewill THOR v2 Chassis

Peripherals:
Logitech G510 keyboard
Gigabyte M6900 mouse
Xbox 360 Wireless Controller receiver
2.1 Logitech speakers

EDIT: Just found a related thread advising to delete HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID (Swear I searched for one before posting.) Will try this when I'm home from work and see what happens.

EDIT 2: Deleting the above registry key did not resolve the problem.

So this is the second time I've posted in EightForums and gotten no reply after quite a while...

So I'll share what I found and the "fix." I have my PC set to run all applications as admin by default. Apparently, for whatever reason, if you run your browser as admin, Metro apps don't appear to be able to open new tabs automatically, although it switches to the browser window to indicate the request is at least sent. I switched Chrome to run normally and it's working fine now.