COM Surrogate window keeps wanting me to log in

[Lloyd_S]

I am running Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview 11082 on my Surface Pro 3 and within the past week to two weeks I am getting a pop window from "Windows Security" that says just COM Surrogate. The pop-up is wanting me to log into my work email address or Microsoft account email address. If I close it without logging in or actually do log into either account the window will reappear in a few minutes.

I have Outlook 2106 installed and the two accounts associated with it are my work and Microsoft accounts, however I don't use Outlook for mail. I use the Mail app in Windows 10 and also have my Gmail account loaded. The COM Surrogate window isn't asking me to log into Gmail so I figured I would open Outlook, log in and see if that stops the window from opening up. Nope. The only account associated with my SP3 is the Microsoft account and no other accounts are listed in All Settings>Accounts other than the Microsoft account.

I've reserached online and see issues for older versions of Windows and none of those tricks seem to do anything. Any suggestions?

 

[RumoredNow]

So far as I can determine, COM Surrogate is a bit of a generic. It signifies a process that isn't resolving from any number of sources. The fact that it is asking for a log in is particularly worrying as you can't trace what wants a password.

My advice. Next time it opens, leave it open. Then do a full scan with your AV and follow with Malwarebytes scan.

Then go here to repair what is borked. It may be a stray process from a removed program or a malicious entity that your system may not have repaired completely. System file check (SFC) Scan and Repair System Files & - Microsoft Community

 

[Lloyd_S]

I've done numerous AV scans using Windows Defender, malware scans using Microsoft Windows Malicious S/W Removal Tool, and run SFC three or four times. All come back stating no issues at all.

 

[Mickael V]

Hi,

Did you find a solution ? I'm having a very very similar case to you. It keeps popping asking for my work acount. In my case I had added that account to win10 or outlook (not sure) then canceled or removed it at some point. I think what I did was try the auto-settings of outlook (entering just email and password) and when it didn't work, since I didn't have all the advanced info (server, cryptography methods bla bla) I canceled.

The funny thing is that I also have an SP3 so I'm wondering if it's not playing a part in the problem somehow.

So I did a search of my company name in the registry, and found an entry with the email address in the following path :
HKCU > Software > Microsoft > Office > 16.0 > Outlook > Profiles > Outlook

Then there's a bunch of subfolders with IDs and one of then has two folders, one of which has a key "AccountName" with that work address.
There's also a key "LastCorruptStore" with a PST having the name of that address in the folder "PST" (in Profiles).

I am not 100% sure about how to clean up those keys without making a mess and don't wanna make the computer unstable, so I'm probably just going to uninstall Outlook and clean it, and reinstall it later.

 

[Cheese7690]

I am having the same issue and I have the SP4. Outlook will not open for me at all. I have tried safe mode and nothing works. I will have to uninstall and try again. i am using Office 365. Any help would be greatly appreciated .