Connecting with range extender setup using mywifiext after initial setup

[Alan-]

When trying to connect to the extender using mywifiext after initial setup, a webpage appears with this message near the top: "You are not connected to your extender's WiFi network".  So, Netgear is telling me my browser tried to resolve mywifiext on the web, not with my extender.  This caused me to perform the following steps:

1. Disconnect from all networks except the extender SSID
2. Close and reopen the browser (although only Internet Explorer and Chrome work, notably not Edge)
3. Navigate to mywifiext - it works!

Is there a way to force a pc to look for mywifiext on the extender network first?  Or is it just basic Windows computing that the browser will always go a different direction when trying to resolve mywifiext and there's nothing to do except disconnect the other pathways to the internet.

And why doesn't Edge work when the other browsers do?  Edge worked for the initial setup.

I'll add the reason this came up.  Normally we only have the one connection to the network through the extender because that's why we needed an extender in the first place.  So in that case, mywifiext would always hit in the extender before going to the web.  But in my case, I'm using an extender to test wireless access for a non-pc ethernet-only device in my lab, and I needed to reprogram the extender on a pc, but couldn't get to the setup menus.  The work around is fine, I'm just trying to understand what's going on in the background and if there's a different way to get around it.

Thanks.

[plemans]

What router are you using? 

One thing to try is look up the ip address for the extender (in the routers attached devices page) and use that to access it. the router is what directs traffic/data and it might be redirecting the mywifiext