In my previous blog post, I showed how to use Intune to set Microsoft Edge as your default browser on Windows 10 or 11 devices. This post is about configuring the Home, Startup, and New tab pages in the Microsoft Edge browser using the Intune admin center.
Table of Contents
Create Device Configuration Profile
To create a Device configuration profile, follow the below steps:
- Sign in to the Intune Admin Center.
- Click on Devices > Configuration > Create > New Policy.
- Click on + Create Profile
- Select Platform as Windows 10 and later
- Select Profile type as Templates
- Select Template Name as Administrative Templates
Basics Tab
Provide a Name and Description of the Policy.
- Name: Microsoft Edge HomePage, StartupPage, and NewTab Page
- Description: This policy will set Microsoft Edge HomePage, StartupPage, and NewTab Page
Configuration Tab
From the Configuration settings, Click on the Microsoft Edge folder –> Startup, home page, and new tab page folder. This will open the folder containing the Microsoft Edge browser settings you can configure.
We will enable and configure the four settings below:
- Action to take on startup
- Configure the new tab page URL
- Set the new tab page as the home page
- Sites to open when the browser starts
Action to take on startup
Enable this policy and Set it to Open a List of URLs. Whenever Microsoft Edge opens, a list of URLs / Websites specified under the setting Sites to open when the browser starts will automatically open. You can also specify just one URL / website as well.
Configure the new tab page URL
Set it to Enabled and Provide a New tab page URL. You can set this to any website you want. When you click on the New Tab in Microsoft Edge, a website set here will automatically open.
Set the New tab page as the home page
Enable this option. It will set a the new tab page as your homepage. When you click the Home Button in Microsoft Edge, it will use the new tab page. Please remember that clicking on the home page setting will not open a new tab. In the later section of this blog post, we’ll explore the user experience of clicking the home page.
Sites to open when the browser starts
Enable this option and define the sites you want to open when the browser starts. You can enter one or multiple website URLs in the list in the text boxes. In my example, I’ve included a single website, https://cloudinfra.net, which I want to open whenever I launch Microsoft Edge Browser.
Four settings are configured, which should complete what we need for this task.
- We have set up our Home Page as a new Tab Page.
- We’ve configured the New Tab URL to be the same as the Home Page URL since we want the home page to open the new tab page. However, if you prefer to set a different website for the home page, you can disable the “Set the new tab page as the home page” option and enable the “Configure the home page URL” setting. We’re now keeping the home page redirection to the new tab page URL.
- We have set up “Action to take on startup” -> We are configuring Microsoft Edge to open a list of URLs.
- We have set up Sites to open when the browser starts > Configure the list of Sites you want to open whenever Microsoft Edge is launched.
Assignments Tab
Click on Add group to add an Entra security group containing users or devices. You can also click on Add all users or Add all devices.
Review + Create Tab
Review the policy and then click on Create.
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
Verify Edge Policies using Edge browser settings
Let’s verify if the policy settings we configured are now visible in the Microsoft Edge browser. As shown in the screenshot below, HomepageIsNewTabPage, NewTabPageLocation, RestoreOnStartup, and RestoreOnStartup are set to the values we configured through the Intune Device Configuration profile.
Open the Microsoft Edge browser and type edge://policy in the address bar to see all the policies applied.
Launch Edge to check the Startup sites
After the policy refresh on the device was completed, I launched the Microsoft Edge browser on the target device, and the website https://cloudinfra.net opened as configured in the “Sites to open when the browser starts” setting.
Test Home Page and New Tab in Edge Browser
Both the Home Page and the New Tab Page open the https://bbc.co.uk website, as configured in the “Configure the new tab page URL” setting.
Use Event Viewer to Confirm Edge Settings Deployment
You can also check via Event Viewer to confirm if Microsoft Edge browser settings are deployed to target devices. Please follow the 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 the logs using Event ID 814 to find the deployment log.
Use Registry to Confirm Edge Settings Deployment
You can also check the registry editor to confirm if Edge settings are successfully deployed. Please follow the below steps to check:
- Go to Start -> Type Regedit and click on Registry Editor.
- Find the Registry Key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\Providers\7CCD9C30-BFE5-4CE3-97C8-FC5E16474D01\default\Device\microsoft_edge~Policy~microsoft_edge~Startup
- On the Right-hand Side, you can check all the Registry entries configured related to Microsoft Edge
Conclusion
This blog post explored how to configure the HomePage, Startup Page, and New Tab Page in Microsoft Edge. We also discussed various settings available through the Microsoft Intune Admin Center.
Setting the startup page can significantly improve user efficiency by launching with the desired page, which is particularly valuable in large organizations with intranet portals.
When assigning this policy, it’s wise to create an Azure AD security group, add a few users, and then apply the policy to this group for initial testing before full-scale deployment to the entire organization.
