Solution: Trying to launch Minecraft on Windows but nothing happens

This has happened to me and my students enough times across enough versions that I wanted to share our solution in case it helps anyone.

Sometimes when we close Minecraft on a Windows device and then try to open it again, nothing happens when we click the icon on the desktop or taskbar, or select it from the start menu. This is especially common if you'd just closed it because something hung up or otherwise seemed to go wrong.

Our solution: 

• CTRL+ALT+DEL to open the task manager.
• Scroll down through the background processes until you get to the M's.
• There should be at least one instance of Minecraft Education running in the background (and there will likely be one for every time you tried to click the icon again). 
• End Task on all of those Minecraft Educations and then close the Task Manager.  
• Try to launch Minecraft again. It should work this time!