Application Hyperlinks Do Not Connect, Yet Browsing is Normal

Hi,

Many Windows apps have embedded hyperlinks pointing to Web resources: for help, sign-up forms, upgrades to paid versions, etc.

I've noticed just recently that every hyperlink in every application on this machine simply does not work. Clicking any hyperlink in any app does absolutely nothing. There are no error messages or anything else.

However, browsing in Chrome / Firefox / IE is normal - no problem with the network that I can see. I can run speed test, surf around, run SEO spidering software, etc. Also, these same apps work fine on a different machine on the same netwrok — I can click-through on any link and get to that resource in a browser.

So, it seems there's is nothing wrong with the apps, or the network.

Here's what I've done so far, I'm stumped. Can anyone provide a fix or guidance?

Checked the hosts file - normal
Reinstalled a few apps - makes no difference and these same apps work fine elsewhere
Disabled firewall
Explicitly allowed troublesome apps in the firewall
Disabled Avast anti-virus
Disable Malwarebytes anti-malware
Ran network diagnostics