How to setup internet explorer favourites for members of a domain?

Question

Is it possible to setup internet explorer favourites for everyone (or perhaps a group) on a domain?

We have a number of favourites that would be useful to share with all users.

Answer 1

This can be done through Group Policy pretty simply. When setting up a new GPO, under the User section you can find the place to add URLs, Favorites and things at Policies -> Windows Settings -> Internet Explorer -> URLs. There you will find two areas to set things, Favorites and URLs. Favorites is what you're looking for. URLs is for things like default home-page and custom search engine settings.

When set this way everyone will get them to which the GPO applies. You can do quite a lot with IE and GPOs, search for "Internet Explorer Admin Kit," or IEAK.

Answer 2

Here's another way of accomplishing this that works with Internet Explorer 10+

User configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Shortcuts: New Shortcut

Action: Replace

Name: %USERPROFILE%\Favorites\Links\Name of Favourite

Target Type: URL

Location: <Specify full path>

Target URL: http://www.urloffavourite.com/

Common tab: CHECKED - Remove this item when it is no longer applied

I found out recently that Internet Explorer Maintenance (IEM) settings have been deprecated in favour of Group Policy Preferences, Administrative Templates (.admx), and the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK). So this is the only way I've found so far that works for IE7+ including IE10 and IE11.