Having problems getting to Microsoft sites on Chrome? Try clearing your cookies

Kip Kniskern

While this isn’t something that’s been a problem for me, a number of users across the web have been running across problems visiting some Microsoft.com sites in Chrome, getting 400 Bad Request errors, which certainly can be annoying.

However there’s a fairly simple fix, and that’s to clear your cookies. Mary Jo Foley posted a link to a quick video on how to do just that, and it’s cleared up the problem (apparently some corrupted cookies) for her:

As you might expect, there are a number of ways to clear your cookies in Chrome (and in all other major browsers, varying a bit with each one). You can go to Settings>Advanced Settings, and under Privacy either just clear all your cookies (might not be a bad idea) or drill down into Content settings and only clear cookies for the sites that are giving you problems.

You can reach the Clear Browsing Data dialog box quickly by clicking on the hamburger menu and finding it under More tools, or you can even navigate to a site that’s giving you trouble, open up the Developer Tools (again under More tools), click on Application, and get a granular dialog for clearing data on a per site level:

Chrome Dev Tools
Chrome Dev Tools

Are you having problems with Microsoft sites in Chrome? Does clearing your cookies help? Let us know in the comments below.