Microsoft Edge as App - Disable "Open browser window" button in the upper left menu

Question

Hi everyone,

in my RDS environment I publish internal web pages by using the following syntax:

msedge.exe --app="https://samplewebsite.com" --no-context-menu

This to ensure that users can only navigate on the published web page without having, for example, the possibility to open a new tab or to use the address bar, etc... To accomplish this I have also disabled shortcut keys. All is working fine.

Now I noticed that on the upper left menu of a website published in APP mode, the button "Open browser window" is available and this obviously permits to every users to open a new browser window nullifying all restrictions I made. See the attached screenshot to better clarify.

My question is: is there a possibility to hide that button, a GPO or a registry key?

Thank you

Best regards

Mario

Answer 1

Hi @Mario Del Mastro ,

Unfortunately, it is not possible to hide that "Open browser window" button. But I do have some workarounds for you to avoid navigating to other pages (if it is your main purpose).

1. Block all sites but allow the target site. You can configure the following 2 group policies: Block access to a list of URLs > *
   Define a list of allowed URLs > https://www.microsoft.com (or other URLs)
2. Use Kiosk mode. The following command line flag will force Edge into fullscreen, not allowing users to navigate to other sites:

--kiosk www.contoso.com --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen

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Best Regards,

Shijie Li