In this blog post, I’ll walk you through Intune policies to enable/disable Spell Check in Edge using Intune. Edge browser comes with a built-in spell checker that helps correct spelling and grammar mistakes. By default, the Spell Check feature is enabled. There are other ways to enable/disable Spell check in Edge. I have discussed about all other ways in my blog post: Enable/disable Spell check in Edge.
Microsoft Edge offers two levels of writing assistance: Basic and Microsoft Editor. Here’s a quick overview:
- Basic: This is the default setting available under edge://settings/languages. It performs local spellchecking directly on your device, ensuring that no typed data is sent to the Microsoft cloud for spellchecking services.
- Microsoft Editor: This AI-powered tool provides advanced writing assistance in over 20 languages, offering spellchecking, grammar checking, and text predictions to enhance your writing experience. However, when you use Microsoft Editor, your typed text is sent to a Microsoft cloud service for analysis. It’s important to note that this data is not stored and is deleted after processing.
- Text Prediction: An additional writing assistance feature called text prediction can also be enabled in Edge. When activated, typed characters in certain text boxes on the web are sent to the Microsoft cloud to provide predictive text suggestions.
If you’re concerned about data privacy and prefer not to send typed data from Microsoft Edge to the Microsoft cloud for spellchecking or grammar checking, you can opt for Basic spell checking. This option provides local spellchecking, ensuring that your typed data remains on your device and is not transmitted to the cloud.
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Enable or Disable Spell Check in Edge Intune Policy
Now that we have a clear understanding of the spell checker service in Microsoft Edge, let’s explore how to enable or disable this service using Intune policies. In addition, I’ll walk you through other spell check-related policies that can be configured to enhance your writing experience in Edge.
- Sign in to Intune admin center > Devices > Windows > Configuration > Create > New Policy.
- Platform: Windows 10 and later
- Profile type: Settings catalog
- Click Create.
- On the Basics tab, provide a Name and Description of the policy and click Next.
- On Configuration settings tab, click on + Add settings and use the Settings picker to search using spell keyword and select Microsoft Edge category. You will find all the settings related to Spell checking service in Edge that you can enable or disable. I will be selecting only the one which I want to configure and test, including Enable spellcheck.
Since spell check is enabled by default in Microsoft Edge, you typically don’t need to enable it through Intune. However, configuring this setting via Intune ensures that it is managed centrally and users cannot disable it. On the other hand, if you want users to manage the spell check setting themselves, you can leave it unchanged and focus on configuring other spell check settings if needed.
- If you also want to manage text prediction setting in edge, you can search for it in the Settings picker and under Microsoft Edge category, select Text prediction enabled by default setting. You can also go with Text prediction enabled by default (User) setting, please note that it will apply in User context and should be assigned to an entra group containing users.
- I have selected below settings and enabled it. That means, once applied, these settings will be enabled and greyed out on the target device. Users will not be able to modify any of these settings in Edge browser.
- Enable spellcheck: This setting will enable spell checker in Edge, Select Enabled.
- Spell checking provided by Microsoft Editor: If you only want to use Basic spell checker service, do not select and enable Microsoft Editor spell checker. I will Enable it as I want to utilize enhanced spell check service in edge.
- Synonyms are provided when using Microsoft Editor spell checker: Enabled
- Text prediction enabled by default: Enabled
In the Configuration tab, Next to each setting is (i) icon in circle. Hover your mouse over this icon to get detailed information about each setting. To make it easier for you to read, I have provided the Information from (i) icon below as well.
Tip
If you enable or don’t configure this policy, the user can use spellcheck. If you disable this policy, the user can’t use spellcheck and the ‘SpellcheckLanguage’ (Enable specific spellcheck languages) and ‘SpellcheckLanguageBlocklist’ (Force disable spellcheck languages) policies are also disabled.
Official definition of Enable spellcheck setting
The Microsoft Editor service provides enhanced spell and grammar checking for editable text fields on web pages. If you enable or don’t configure this policy, Microsoft Editor spell check can be used for eligible text fields. If you disable this policy, spell check can only be provided by local engines that use platform or Hunspell services. The results from these engines might be less informative than the results Microsoft Editor can provide. If the ‘SpellcheckEnabled’ (Enable spellcheck) policy is set to disabled, or the user disables spell checking in the settings page, this policy will have no effect.
Official definition of Spell checking provided by Microsoft Editor setting
The Microsoft Editor service provides enhanced spell and grammar checking for editable text fields on web pages, and synonyms can be suggested as an integrated feature. If you enable this policy, Microsoft Editor spell checker will provide synonyms for suggestions for misspelled words. If you disable or don’t configure this policy, Microsoft Editor spell checker will not provide synonyms for suggestions for misspelled words. If the ‘SpellcheckEnabled’ (Enable spellcheck) policy or the ‘MicrosoftEditorProofingEnabled’ (Spell checking provided by Microsoft Editor) policy are set to disabled, or the user disables spell checking or chooses not to use Microsoft Editor spell checker in the settings page, this policy will have no effect.
Official definition of Synonyms are provided when using Microsoft Editor spell checker setting
The Microsoft Turing service uses natural language processing to generate predictions for long-form editable text fields on web pages. If you enable or don’t configure this policy, text predictions will be provided for eligible text fields. If you disable this policy, text predictions will not be provided in eligible text fields. Sites may still provide their own text predictions.
Official definition of Text prediction enabled by default setting
- Scope tags: Click Next
- Assignments: Assign this policy to an entra security group containing users or devices. It’s a best practice to test the policy on a few devices first. If it’s working fine, then extend it to other devices.
- Review + create: Review the policy settings and click on Create.
Monitoring Defender SmartScreen Intune Policy
- Sign in to the Intune admin center > Devices > Configuration.
- Select the Device Configuration profile you want to work with, and at the top of the page, you’ll see a quick view of the Success, Failure, Conflict, Not Applicable, and In Progress status.
- Click on View report to access more detailed information.
Sync Intune Policies
The device check-in process might not begin immediately. If you’re testing this policy on a test device, you can manually kickstart Intune sync from the device itself or remotely through the Intune admin center.
Alternatively, you can use PowerShell to force the Intune sync on Windows devices. Restarting the device is another way to trigger the Intune device check-in process.
End User Experience
After the deployment is successfully completed, Launch edge browser and click on three dots (…) on the top right-hand side corner. Click on Languages on the left-hand side. Under Writing assistance, you will find that all the settings are set as we have configured in the Intune Policy. Alternatively, type edge://settings/languages in the address bar to directly open the lanugage settings page in edge.
These settings are also greyed out because they are being managed by Intune. Users will not be able to change these settings. If any of these settings needs to be changed, you will need to update the Intune policy.
Spell Check is not working in Edge
If you find that Spell checker is not working when you type in Edge, even after confirming that its enabled under Settings. follow below steps to check if its enabled on the system level:
- On your Windows 11 device, Open Settings App.
- Click on Time & Language > Typing.
- Ensure that Autocorrect misspelled words and Highlight misspelled words settings are turned on.
Other Spell Check Settings in Intune for Edge
There are some Spell check settings which I have not configured in our Intune Policy. I will list them below with the description of the policy. Go through the information and enable/disable it as per your requirement.
| Other Spell Check Settings in Edge | Description |
|---|---|
| Enable specific spellcheck languages | Enables different languages for spellcheck. Any language that you specify that isn’t recognized is ignored. If you enable this policy, spellcheck is enabled for the languages specified, as well as any languages the user has enabled. If you don’t configure or disable this policy, there’s no change to the user’s spellcheck preferences. If the ‘SpellcheckEnabled’ (Enable spellcheck) policy is disabled, this policy will have no effect. If a language is included in both the ‘SpellcheckLanguage’ and the ‘SpellcheckLanguageBlocklist’ (Force disable spellcheck languages) policy, the spellcheck language is enabled. The supported languages are: af, bg, ca, cs, cy, da, de, el, en-AU, en-CA, en-GB, en-US, es, es-419, es-AR, es-ES, es-MX, es-US, et, fa, fo, fr, he, hi, hr, hu, id, it, ko, lt, lv, nb, nl, pl, pt-BR, pt-PT, ro, ru, sh, sk, sl, sq, sr, sv, ta, tg, tr, uk, vi. Example value: fr es |
| Force disable spellcheck languages | Force-disables spellcheck languages. Unrecognized languages in that list will be ignored. If you enable this policy, spellcheck will be disabled for the languages specified. The user can still enable or disable spellcheck for languages not in the list. If you do not set this policy, or disable it, there will be no change to the user’s spellcheck preferences. If the ‘SpellcheckEnabled’ (Enable spellcheck) policy is set to disabled, this policy will have no effect. If a language is included in both the ‘SpellcheckLanguage’ (Enable specific spellcheck languages) and the ‘SpellcheckLanguageBlocklist’ policy, the spellcheck language is enabled. The currently supported languages are: af, bg, ca, cs, da, de, el, en-AU, en-CA, en-GB, en-US, es, es-419, es-AR, es-ES, es-MX, es-US, et, fa, fo, fr, he, hi, hr, hu, id, it, ko, lt, lv, nb, nl, pl, pt-BR, pt-PT, ro, ru, sh, sk, sl, sq, sr, sv, ta, tg, tr, uk, vi. Example value: fr es |
