Test 1
Same result in both cases
Test 2
Running tor.exe from Command prompt does nothing.
torrc is empty; state.tmp contains
# Tor state file last generated on 2026-06-22 12:21:15 local time
# Other times below are in UTC
# You *do not* need to edit this file.
Dormant 0
LastWritten 2026-06-22 11:21:15
TorVersion Tor 0.4.9.9 (git-74b53bd1992da4ec)
The first test confirms that the proxy tor.exe is not up which is the cause. Task Manager demonstrates this.
Test 2 demonstrates that tor.exe exists. In my initial response I had renamed tor.exe which gave me the same result as your pop-up but we know that your tor.exe exists. When I run this same test, I get the same as you except state.tmp in mine is just state. Those files mentioned are created in users/appdata/roaming/tor. These are junk now.
I’m having a hard time simulating your situation exactly. I can’t stop an app from executing as an AV can.
When I block tor.exe from accessing the internet, on a test Win11, Tor browser just hangs and no pop-up. Test 2 demonstrates that tor.exe does start since it was able to create those files mentioned. I suspect it gets stopped somewhere and thus the problem.
Can you possibly stop those 2 AVs temporarily just to see or one at a time to see which is a problem. To me 2 AVs seems weird. The Windows AV probably gets disabled by one or both.
As a last resort I asked Duck Duck this question:
Does MalwareBytes prevent Tor Browser from running
WoW lots of replies. So try that query and see if any solution works for you.