Any solid way of setting a preferred home page during imaging?

Rick Someone 411

Since we're no longer using IE, I do not have a good way to set our home page.

I can't use the Unattend any longer that I know of as it only refers to IE.
CustomSettings is next in priority. I tried to set it there and it didn't work.
Third priority is using a DB which I do not.
Lastly, the Task Sequence itself, which takes priority over all the others.

How would I set a home page as a step in a TS? I've not had luck with anything holding.

2 answers

Gary Blok 1,736 Reputation points

2021-03-24T03:43:16.133+00:00

Are you talking about setting defaults for the New Edge Browser?
There are several registry values you can set during OSD to control the behavior, they would be the same ones you would set leveraging group policy

You're going to want to look at this section in the docs: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#startup-home-page-and-new-tab-page-policies
Please sign in to rate this answer.

0 comments No comments
Sign in to comment
Simon Ren-MSFT 30,031 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2021-03-24T05:26:15.22+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for posting in Microsoft MECM Q&A forum.

Based on my experience, it's recommended to use GPO to set your default home page. For more information, please refer to:
Make Bing.com the default home page

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Simon

If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.
Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.
Please sign in to rate this answer.
Rick Someone 411 Reputation points

2021-03-24T13:36:41.19+00:00

I am looking for a way via MDT to set a "home page" after deployment. I used to use the unattend section
but anymore that is just for IE settings.
I have a default app PS script and set Chrome as default, but cannot set the home page.
I've read that this can be done in the CustomSettings.INI but that never takes.
It isn't really possible at this time to get GPO added as the AD/Server group has many projects in the works at the moment.

Simon Ren-MSFT 30,031 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2021-03-25T05:50:19.073+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

If possible, please help check the BDD.log and SMSTS.log to see if there is any useful information for troubleshooting. Refer to:
Troubleshooting Reference for the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Simon

Rick Someone 411 Reputation points

2021-03-25T19:42:12.687+00:00

I found a hcrome.reg file from Google Chrome which you apparently set up then have each user run so that it imports the settings you selected prior.

When I run it, I just get some message about the program not being able to write to the folders and Chrome fails to open at all. Im not going that route. I'll keep searching for CS.INI or somewhere in the unattend. Hopefully they will rewrite that to be able to control browsers other than IE now.

Simon Ren-MSFT 30,031 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor

2021-03-26T02:29:03.697+00:00

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

Does the hcrome.reg is a user setting (HKCU)? If yes, please load the default registry hive to have a try if you want to apply that setting during OSD with a task sequence. Like below:
REG LOAD HKLM\DefaultHive C:\users\default\ntuser.dat
REG ADD "the hcrome registry"
REG UNLOAD HKLM\DefaultHive

Maybe it will set the start page for all future user profiles on the computer

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,
Simon
Sign in to comment