VBA can't find the existing IE sessions - excel

Question

There are many articles dealing with finding the existing IE sessions and then working with them. For some reason, they don't work for me.
I have the following code which creates IE 11 sessions. Sometimes, I manually terminated the VBA code. That left the IE session as an orphan.
Set IE = GetObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
If IE Is Nothing Then Set IE = CreateObject("INTERNETEXPLORER.APPLICATION")
With IE
.Visible = True
.Navigate URL
I have found many articles with all sorts of code to find the existing IE sessions but they don't work for me. The following code is an example.
Sub test_is()
Dim IE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
On Error Resume Next
Set IE = GetObject(, "InternetExplorer.Application")
Debug.Print Err.Description
On Error GoTo 0
If IE Is Nothing Then
Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
If IE Is Nothing Then
Debug.Print "error getting IE"
Else
IE.Quit
End If
End If
End Sub
When it got to "Set IE = GetObject(, "InternetExplorer.Application")", Debug.Print reported that "ActiveX component can't create object
".
As the code went on, an IE session was created and then quit. That's the only IE session quit. The other IE sessions which had been created by other code stayed intact. I have tried at least six codes I found on the NET. They work for some people but never work for me.
The following is another example:
Sub Find_IE_Windows()
Dim Shell As Object
Dim IE As Object
Set Shell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
For Each IE In Shell.Windows
If TypeName(IE.Document) = "HTMLDocument" Then
MsgBox "Internet Explorer window found:" & vbCrLf & _
"LocationURL=" & IE.LocationURL & vbCrLf & _
"LocationName=" & IE.LocationName
IE.Quit
End If
Next
End Sub
In my case, the Shell.Windows.Count was zero. So, the code went from the For loop directly to End Sub.
In other cases, Shell.Windows.Count were 2 when I had excel, IE 11 and MS Edge running. And those two shell windows were File Explorer sessions, not Excel, not Edge, not IE 11.
I have Microsoft Internet Controls, Microsoft HTML Object Library, Microsoft Shell Control and Automation all checked. Am I missing some other library?
The only code that works is this one but it stops MS Edge from getting online. So, can't use it.
Sub IE_Sledgehammer()
Dim objWMI As Object, objProcess As Object, objProcesses As Object
Set objWMI = GetObject("winmgmts://.")
Set objProcesses = objWMI.ExecQuery( _
"SELECT * FROM Win32_Process WHERE Name = 'iexplore.exe'")
For Each objProcess In objProcesses
Call objProcess.Terminate
Next
Set objProcesses = Nothing: Set objWMI = Nothing
End Sub
I'm running Windows 10 Pro and Excel 2010.