I have a weird problem on several 2012 R2 VMs. If you go to the start screen and click in the IE tile to open IE a screen quickly flashes and then disappears. You do not get any king of browser window and there is no program running in the task bar.

If you navigate to c:\program files\internet explorer and run iexplore.exe is starts fine.  If you create a desktop shortcut that also works fine.  But even removing the start icon and clicking on the exe and pinning it to the start menu the icon still does not work. I've tried a few things (like changing the opening internet explored setting under internet options - programs) but no luck.  I found one mention of the problem online but it did not have a solution so I hope I have better luck

I also tried regsvr32 actxprxy.dll and it is not IE enhanced security mode being on

Have you tried logging in as a different user account?

same for multiple users

It's got to be something unique to your installation.  I have never had that issue on any VM or physical host running 2012 R2.

You say you have the problem on 'several VMs'.  Does that mean that it is working properly on other VMs?

Yes. I know of at least 4 VMs with this issue.  But we have a couple hundred VMs.

So it is working fine on most of your VMs but just a few are experiencing this issue?  If that's the case, I would start comparing working to non-working servers to find the difference.  Again, it is something non-standard in your environment.  Are those VMs in some special group policy group that the working VMs are not?