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Is there a way to use a GPO to set the IE homepage for all users which ensures that this page is always set / cannot be changed, whilst still allowing users to keep/amend additional homepages in separate tabs?

e.g. all users have http://myIntranet.myCompany.com as their homepage, and cannot remove that page. However Bill in IT wants https://www.stackoverflow.com and https://serverfault.com to open (as additional tabs) with IE, whilst Clive in accounts wants https://support.office.com/en-us/excel and http://www.fool.co.uk.

Should be it relevant, the company standards are:

  • browser is IE11
  • OS is Windows 7

Some users (i.e. IT) have additional browsers and local admin, so can work around restrictions, but I'm hoping to find a solution that can be used by anyone / without requiring hacks & workarounds.

Related post on setting homepage / allowing that to be editted: How to set the Internet Explorer Home Page via GPO?

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JohnLBevan
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1 Answers1

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Solution

The browser's homepage(s) is set by the following registry entries:

  • HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page
  • HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Secondary Start Pages

By defining only HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page we can set the "fixed/default" page, leaving Secondary Start Pages free for user amendment.

Caveats

  • A user can still reset their primary start page during a session, but this will be overwritten the next time the GP's applied. That's not a concern.

  • One minor bug with this approach is the first tab will be set as the Start Page; whatever this is will be wiped out when the GP's applied (as that now overwrites Start Page leaving only Secondary Pages). If that first tab is the default start page there's no problem. If it's anything else it gets forgotten. So long as users are made aware of this, they can leave the first tab as the default or just have it display a dummy/blank page with the knowledge that that will be dropped & replaced by the default.

(This theory's yet to be tested when applied via GPO, but works based on preliminary testing of playing with the registry entries on my local machine).

JohnLBevan
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