In this blog post, we will learn how to configure the Google Chrome browser’s home page, startup page, and new tag page. We will create a device configuration profile from the Intune admin center and target it to Windows 10 and 11 devices.
You will find the home page, startup page, new tab page, and other Google Chrome settings in two places. Select the settings you want to configure according to your requirements.
- Device Configuration Profile > Profile Type > Templates > Administrative templates
- Device Configuration Profile > Profile Type > Settings Catalog
Select one of the Device configuration profiles and proceed with the configuration. In my other blog post, I utilized Administrative templates to configure the Microsoft Edge browser’s Home page, startup page, and new tab page. For more details, refer to the blog post, Set MS Edge Home/Startup/New Tab.
Let’s explore both options.
Table of Contents
Option 1 – Configure Chrome Settings via Administrative templates
Chrome settings can be configured via Administrative Templates and the Settings Catalog. Let’s first explore the available settings for Chrome’s home page, startup page, and new tab page in the Google Chrome Administrative Templates.
- Sign in to the Intune Admin Center.
- Click on Devices -> Configuration > Create > New Policy.
- Select Platform as Windows 10 and later.
- Select Profile type as Templates.
- Select Template Name as Administrative Templates.
- On the Basics Tab, Provide the Name and Description of the policy.
- On the Configuration settings tab, Click on Computer Configuration > Google folder.
- Under Google folder, Click on Google Chrome folder.
- Scroll down to find a folder called Startup, Home page and New Tab page. Click on it to open.
- The settings below are under Startup, Home page, and New Tab page folder. Select the settings according to your requirements and provide the URLs for home page, startup page, and new tab page:
- Actions on startup
- Configure the home page URL
- Configure the New Tab page URL
- Show home button on toolbar
- URLs to open on startup
- Use New Tab Page as home page.
Option 2 – Configure Chrome Settings via Settings Catalog
The following settings are available in the settings catalog for configuring the startup, home, and new tab pages. Please note that you will encounter two policy settings: device-based and user-based.
Device-based settings apply to the device and affect all users on that device. User-based policies can be targeted to particular users. The user settings will have (User) at the end of the policy name. I will go with Device-based policies, which will apply to all users on target devices.
- Action on Startup
- Configure the home page URL
- Configure the New Tab page URL
- URLs to open on startup
- On the Basics Tab, Provide the Name and description of the policy.
- On the Configuration settings tab, Click + Add settings and search for “startup home page” on the Settings picker pane.
- Click on Google\Google Chrome\Startup Home page and New Tab page category and select below settings:
- Actions on startup
- Configure the home page URL
- Configure the New Tab page URL
- URLs to open on startup.
You can also select and configure other settings according to your requirements. For example, Use the New Tab page as the homepage, Show the Home button on the toolbar, etc.
- Provide the URLs corresponding to the policy settings and click on Next to proceed to the next step.
Scope tags
Click on Next.
Assignments tab
Select Add groups and opt for an Entra security group containing Windows 10/11 devices or Entra ID users. Adding devices to the group and targeting them is recommended for a controlled deployment. Once testing proves successful, you can expand the deployment by including additional devices in the group.
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.
Monitoring Deployment Progress
To monitor the deployment progress of a Device configuration profile, follow the below steps:
- Sign in to the Intune admin center.
- Click on Devices and then click on Configuration.
- Choose 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.
End-user Experience
After the Intune policy is applied successfully, you can launch the Google Chrome browser to check and confirm whether it is working fine as per the configuration in the device configuration profiles.
This confirms whether the deployed settings are implemented in the Google Chrome browser. You can type chrome://settings in the Chrome address bar and search for “new tab page” to configure the settings for the new tab page.
Conclusion
We have learned about the configuration of Google Chrome settings, such as the home page, startup page, and new tab page. There are two options to configure these settings: One by using Administrative templates and the second by using Settings catalog policy settings.
The recommendation is to use one of the device configuration profile types to avoid any policy conflicts and test the policies on a few devices first to ensure they work fine before proceeding with the rest of the MDM devices.
