Set Microsoft Edge As Default Browser Using Microsoft Intune

Applies to: Windows 10 and Windows 11
Microsoft Edge: Version 77 or later

You can set Microsoft Edge as your default browser on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 devices using Microsoft Intune. If all your organization devices are enrolled and managed using Intune, then you can create a Device configuration profile to configure / Set Microsoft Edge as a default browser on all devices.

You can either Use an OMA-URI ApplicationDefaults/DefaultAssociationsConfiguration or apply default association configuration from Device configuration profile settings catalog to configure the default browser as Microsoft Edge.

Generate Default app Association XML

First, generate a default app association XML file from any Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC. To generate default app association xml file follow below steps:

Set Microsoft Edge browser as default browser manually

You will need to login on a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC and set Microsoft Edge as a default browser manually. Do this by going to Settings -> Apps -> Default apps -> Web browser -> Select Microsoft Edge.

Set Microsoft Edge as default browser using Microsoft Intune

Generate App Associations XML File.

Create an empty folder anywhere in your system. For example: C:\temp.
Open command prompt as an administrator and run below command:

Dism /Online /Export-DefaultAppAssociations:"C:\temp\AppAssociations.xml"

Open the AppAssociations.xml file and remove all other app associations except Microsoft Edge. It should look similar to below. If you do not want to associate .pdf files with Microsoft Edge then you can remove the line with .pdf from the XML and proceed.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<DefaultAssociations>
  <Association Identifier=".htm" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" />
  <Association Identifier=".html" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" />
  <Association Identifier=".pdf" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" />
  <Association Identifier="http" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" />
  <Association Identifier="https" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" /> 
  <Association Identifier="read" ProgId="MSEdgeHTM" ApplicationName="Microsoft Edge" />
</DefaultAssociations>

Encode App associations XML to base64 format

Now you have your AppAssociations.xml file. We need to use a base64 encoder app to convert it to a base64 encoded XML:

Click on base64encode link.
Copy the contents of App associations XML file into the encoder and click on Encode button.
You will get an Output. Copy and paste the Output somewhere in notepad.

Encode App associations XML to base64 format

Create Intune Device Configuration Profile

To create a Device Configuration Profile, Please follow below steps:

Login on Microsoft Endpoint Manager Center.
Click on Devices -> Configuration profiles -> Create Profile.
Select Platform type as Windows 10 and later.
Select Profile type as Settings Catalog.
Click on Create.

Basics Tab

Provide a Name and Description of the Policy
Click on Next to Proceed.

Configuration Tab

Click on + Add settings.
Search for Application Defaults in the Settings Picker.
Check / Select Default Associations Configuration.
Close the Settings Picker.
Copy the base64 encoded value generated in previous step in the Default Associations configuration Textbox.

Assignments Tab

Either Add all devices or an Azure AD security group containing specific devices.

Review + Create

Review the policy and click on Create to create the policy.

End User Experience

Now, lets check one of the Windows 10 device where we have targetted this policy. You can either wait for the Intune Policy refresh to complete or speed up the sync to download the policies as soon as possible, you can force initiate a Intune sync from the Device itself. In case if it still does not work, then you need to restart your device once and check if the policy has been applied and default browser has been changed to Microsoft Edge.

From Settings App

Go to the Settings App on the device.
Click on Apps -> Default Apps.
Scroll down on the page to find Web browser.
You will see that Microsoft Edge is selected as your default browser now. I did change my default browser to Google Chrome, Synced and then restarted my device. Its changed it back to Microsoft Edge due to this policy. Please note that users can still change the Default Web browser back to Google Chrome or Firefox etc. manually, but during the next Intune refresh cycle this will again revert back to Microsoft Edge.

From Microsoft EndPoint Manager Admin Center

To check if the Device Configuration Profile has been deployed successfully. Please follow below steps:

From Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center, Click on Devices on the left hand side.
Click on Configuration Profiles.
Search for Set Microsoft Edge as Default Browser device configuration profile or whatever name you had provided at the time of creation of this policy.
In the Overview section you can check the deployment status. You can also click on View report to find more information about the deployment status.

From Registry Editor

Follow below steps to Verify if Default Association setting has been applied successfully.

Go to Start -> Type Regedit and click on Registry Editor.
Find the Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\ApplicationDefaults
You can check an Regisry Entry on the right hand side: DefaultAssociationsConfiguration which should be now set to base64 encoded value configured via Intune.

From Event Viewer

You can also check via Event viewer if Default Association Policy has been pushed to this machine now. Please follow below steps to check:

Go to Start -> Search for Event Viewer and click on it to Launch Event Viewer MMC.
Expand Application and Services logs -> Microsoft -> Windows.
Find DeviceManagement-Enterprise-Diagnostics-Provider folder.
Click on Admin and Filter for Event ID 814.
Go through the logs to find the this particular policy status.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we have seen how to configure Microsoft Edge as your default browser using Microsoft Intune. You can also use the same steps and set Google Chrome or Firefox or any browser as a default browser. For this, Instead of Microsoft Edge you need to Set Google Chrome or Firefox on a device manually, generate a default App association XML file, encode to base64 format and use Intune Device Configuration Profile to configure it.

You can also use an OMA-URI setting to configure Microsoft Edge as your default browser but using Settings Catalog seems a bit simpler. If you wish to use OMA-URI then you can create a Custom device configuration profile and then Add below OMA-URI Setting:

Name	MicrosoftEdgeDefaultBrowser
Description	Set Microsoft Edge as Default Browser.
OMA-URI	./Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/ApplicationDefaults/DefaultAssociationsConfiguration
Data type	String
Value	base64 encoded output value

References

You can use below reference / links which provide more information about setting Microsoft Edge as default browser:

Set Microsoft Edge as default browser using Microsoft Intune

Generate Default app Association XML