How do you disable InPrivate browsing on a Microsoft Family child account?

Question

I have a Microsoft Family child account, with the content filtering age set to 15 years old. On all of my devices, all web browsers are banned except for Microsoft Edge. On MS edge, InPrivate browsing is greyed out and disable due to my account being managed by Microsoft family. Also, when I start Edge, click the three dots in the top right, and look at the bottom of the pop-up dialogue, there is a message stating "Managed by your family group". This functionality is working as desired and expected. I just got a new laptop and downloaded the latest version of Edge (which I have confirmed is the exact same version of Edge on my other devices), only to then find out that, despite the same "Managed by family group" message appearing at the bottom of said pop-up box, my InPrivate browsing is enabled. We (me and my father) have both searched online for a solution to this issue, but to no avail. We then looked through the various settings on the Microsoft Family page (signed in as an organizer and not a member), and found a little message near the activity reporting options stating that InPrivate browsing is blocked. This was a default setting and could not be changed. That said, I still have InPrivate browsing enabled. I have found many online sources saying that I can manually disable InPrivate browsing via some commands in registry editor and/or command prompt, but that is not the solution we are looking for. In summary, I'm curious why InPrivate browsing is enabled on my new laptop using the latest version of the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge, despite my being logged in with a child account and all other functionalities of Microsoft family functioning correctly.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I was able to fix this by doing the following. See after the steps for background to the problem and this fix.

1. Login to an administrator account.
2. Use account settings to change the child account from standard to administrator
3. Log in to the child account
4. Launch regedit
5. Navigate to HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft and add a new key called Edge
6. Add the DWORD InPrivateModeAvailability to the new key, and set its value to 1
7. Launch Edge
8. Open the Edge menu, and it shows that Edge is now being managed by both family safety and an organisational policy.
9. Close Edge
10. Delete the Edge key that was just added (or just the DWORD if there were other items already in the key?)
11. Launch Edge again
12. Open the menu and it shows that Edge is now being managed by family safety only. The family icon appears next to the New InPrivate Window menu item and the menu item is grayed out.
13. Log out from the child account
14. Log back in to the administrator account and change the child account back to standard.

Background: I had this issue on both an existing PC, and also one that a clean install of Windows only a couple of weeks ago. This setting had been working in the past, so somewhere along the line the setting was lost. Nothing was ever changed in Family Safety itself. The affected PCs had two child accounts, and both were allowing InPrivate browsing when it should have been disabled.

Before doing the above Edge in both child accounts reported it was being managed by family safety (the message and family group icon was at the bottom of the menu), but the New InPrivate Window menu item was enabled, and there was no family icon next to it.

I tried the registry fix (found on another page) to at least disable InPrivate through other means. When I tested if the fix had worked I discovered that the InPrivate setting was now grayed out. I didn't need to log out and back in to the account, closing and re-opening Edge was enough to pick up the new policy.

Edge reported that it was now being managed by both family safety AND an organisational policy, but the icon next to InPrivate was the family safety one, not the organisational one.

Out of curiosity I deleted the registry key with the new Edge policy, closed and re-opened Edge. Now New InPrivate Window was still grayed out, and it still had the family icon next to it.

I logged out of this child account and in to the second child account to try the same fix, but this account had also now started applying family safety properly. So it appears in my case that it was only necessary to apply these steps to one account, but that this was enough to fix both.

I rebooted the machine, and the setting has "stuck" and is being properly enforced.

I repeated the steps on the second machine, and this also started applying family safety correctly.

I have no idea why this worked, nor why it stopped working in the first place. All the machines are running the same version of Edge - Version 87.0.664.75 (Official build) (64-bit)

What is very strange is that each child has a laptop, running an adult account as administrator, and their own account as child. Both laptops have continued to correctly apply the family settings to Edge. They are also running Edge 87.0.664.75.

But, I now have family safety working.

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 2

I found another thread involving a direct edit to the registry.  This appears to have fixed this issue for me.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftedge/forum/all/how-to-disable-inprivate-browsing-in-new-ms-edge/a9fc0a14-19f5-46e4-bfe0-537003f6d443

I hope this helps.  It's really not good that my kid can randomly browse the internet while she's supposed to be in school (online at the moment...)

Answer 3

Hi TextuarySword41, 

This was a temporary issue with blocking InPrivate Browsing and should be resolved in the latest version of Microsoft Edge! Make sure you've updated to the latest version, and let me know if you're still seeing the issue. 

Thanks for using Edge!

-Alex

Answer 4

Similar situation here:

• We use Microsoft Family with several children and multiple machines the kiddos access.
• On the child accounts, the only browser allowed is Edge, as Microsoft cannot control the content on 3rd party browsers.
• When using all machines, the child accounts are unable to use InPrivate mode. Why? Because I have the "Activity Report" option selected under "Activity" in the Family Account settings for each of the child accounts. And when that box is clicked, automatically, a small remark comes below stating that "InPrivate browsing is blocked"
• And in fact, this works as expected. When using the child accounts, they simply cannot use InPrivate browsing...the option is greyed out.
• So, great job Microsoft...kindof.
• On a new laptop, we setup only one account...a child account.
• The time restrictions works. The blocking of various apps work. All seemed to be right with the world, well, at least in the world of Microsoft Family content restrictions.
• That is, until we noticed that the child in question was in fact able to open an InPrivate browsing window, which is highly problematic.
• Note: this same child then when to the other machine, which works correctly, and once again confirmed that they were unable to open an InPrivate browsing window...it was greyed out.
• But on this new machine, it wasn't greyed out.
• Yes, the child was signed in. And as mentioned above, other parental controls worked, such as blocking of apps, time restrictions, etc.
• And yes, BOTH machines have the EXACT same version of the new Chromium-based Edge.

Any ideas? Solutions? Thank you!!!