WebAppInstallForceList for Edge PWA Causes Reoccurring "App Installed" Popup

Question

We're pushing out a PWA for a web app hosted on our intranet using the properties: custom icon, custom name, & default_launch_container (window).

The issue is that Edge will give a pop-up AFTER EVERY SINGLE REBOOT EVERY TIME the PWA/Edge is fully closed then re-opened (and after opening the PWA) that says "App Installed" and give options (pin to taskbar, pin to Start, create desktop shortcut, auto-start) to allow or don't allow, even after previously selecting "Allow" (or "Don't allow"). I've tried setting the policy to not create a desktop shortcut, a fresh install of Windows, using the newest version of Edge, and I've tried pushing the policy out via Intune as well as just adding the policy directly to the registry.

Chrome does not exhibit this behavior when using the same "WebAppInstallForceList" policy to deploy the same exact PWA for Chrome.

Answer 1

Hi TM-987,

I can understand why this seems confusing, especially since you've already done multiple tests and confirmed that Chrome does not show the same behavior. Based on the information provided, I agree that this does not appear to be a policy configuration issue on your side. But if you're interested, there's a few other things I would suggest checking: 

• Verify the exact policy being applied by navigating to edge://policy > click Reload policies. Also remove any other policies to confirm there's no interferences. 
• Confirm that the WebAppInstallForceList entry appears only once and that there are no duplicate policies being received from both HKLM and HKCU. 
• Check whether the behavior occurs with a simplified configuration: 
  • Confirm the icon URLs in the manifest return the same image file each time. 
  • If using, temporarily remove custom_name and custom_icon from the WebAppInstallForceList entry. 
  • Leave only the required URL value and default_launch_container. 
• Test with a publicly accessible PWA that contains a standard manifest to confirm whether the popup only occurs with your intranet-hosted application. 
• Check whether Edge is reinstalling the PWA every time it starts 
  • Open edge://web-app-internals > locate the affected PWA. 
  • Note the install or update information shown for that app. 
  • Close all Edge processes completely > reopen Edge. 
  • Check again to see if the information changes. 

If the above tests still reproduce the issue, this might be an Edge-specific regression with force-installed PWAs rather than a configuration mistake. In that case, I would recommend collecting Edge diagnostics and submitting feedback directly to the engineering team for investigation.

• Press Alt + Shift + I in Edge to open Send Feedback form 
• Including the information you provided above (and new testing results)
• Mention that Chrome does not reproduce the behavior with the same PWA configuration.

If you can provide them the exact JSON being used in WebAppInstallForceList (with any internal URLs / identifiable information redacted), there may be something specific in the configuration that triggers the repeated install detection.

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Answer 2

After following some of the suggestions, I tested against edge://web-app-internals and found that when including the "custom_icon" parameter in the "WebAppInstallForceList" policy, the "latest_install_time" kept changing every time the browser/PWA was closed.

So essentially, "custom_icon" causes the PWA to be re-installed every time you open it (after the browser engine has fully closed). This also happens in Chrome, not just Edge. It is worth noting Chrome does not have the "App installed" pop-up every time a PWA is installed/re-installed, so it leads to more unwanted UI behavior in Edge, but I would still consider it ultimately a Chromium issue.

I used Github PWA for testing this as well. I will try to report this to Chromium devs but here are the steps I used for testing:

1. Open registry to: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome
2. Add a property (String value) with a name of "WebAppInstallForceList"
3. Add the string value: [{"url": "https://github.com","default_launch_container": "window","create_desktop_shortcut": false,"custom_name": "Github (Chrome)","custom_icon": {"url": "https://github.com/fluidicon.png","hash": "1BEDD6A1948971F07970414717012503805309F25AF0B2C542DBC3524B5880E9"}}]
4. Open Google Chrome
5. Open the PWA
6. In Chrome, go to chrome://web-app-internals, and check the "!app_id", "first_install_time", & "latest_install_source" properties
7. Close Chrome and the PWA
8. Open the PWA and Chrome
9. go to chrome://web-app-internals, and check the "!app_id", "first_install_time", & "latest_install_source". The "latest_install_source" will be a newer date.