How can I deploy custom favorites in Microsoft Edge to Windows 10 devices using Microsoft Intune

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Introduction

Managing Windows 10 computers using Microsoft Intune is getting easier and easier. To customize the experience for your Windows 10 users so that they have favorites pre-loaded in Microsoft Edge, you can configure favorites in Edge using Microsoft Intune, and here's how to do it step-by-step.

Step 1. Configure some favorites

On a Windows 10 virtual machine (don't have one ? create one with this PowerShell script), start up Microsoft Edge, browse to a website (1) by entering it's URL in the address field and then add it as a favorite (2) by clicking on the star. Repeat for as many site's as you want in your favorites.

After you've added some favorites you can review the list of saved favorites by clicking on the favorites icon (3)

Step 2. Export the custom favorites

On the Windows 10 virtual machine, click on the Settings elipse in Microsoft Edge (4) and scroll down to Settings (5)

Choose Import from another browser (6)

and choose Export to file (7)

change the name from Microsoft_Edge_‎03_‎23_‎2018 (the current date) to Favorites (8)

The exported favorites are saved as Favorites.html in the Documents folder on the virtual machine.

Step 3. Copy the Favorites file to your web server

Using whatever method you choose, copy the Favorites.html file to your intranet (or extranet) web server, in the example below I've copied the file to my webserver which hosts this web site, and it just happens to be running on Linux.

The file must be readable by the devices you intend to deploy it to, for example my favorites.html file is publicly readable at the following address https://www.windows-noob.com/favorites.html

Step 4. Create a Configuration Profile in Intune

In Microsoft Intune (in Azure), click on Device Configuration, select Profiles, then create a new profile by clicking on Create Profile. Fill in the following details:

• Name: Windows 10 - Edge favorites
• Description: windows-noob.com (c) 2018
• Platform: Windows 10 and later
• Profile type: Device restrictions

For Settings, select Edge Browser on the right and for Favorites List enter the URL that you verified above which contains your favorites.html file eg: https://www.windows-noob.com/favorites.html

Click on OK when done, and OK again and finally click on Create to create the Configuration Profile.

Finally, Assign the profile to a Device group containing Windows 10 devices that you want to target with this policy.

Here you can see the profile is assigned to a Group which I've previously created and populated with a Windows 10 device

Step 5. Verify the policy on the target device(s)

Using a licensed Intune user, logon to one of the devices targeted with the policy and trigger a policy sync (optional, you could just wait an hour or so....)

After the device has synced, you should see Browser under Policies.

open Microsoft Edge and click on the Favorites icon. It should state "Some settings are managed by your organization" and your previously defined favorites should be listed. Success !

The favorites you defined will have a lock symbol on them so cannot be changed by the user, however the user can add/remove additional favorites of their own and those favorites will not have a lock symbol on them.

Related reading 

• How to configure device restriction settings in Microsoft Intune - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/device-restrictions-configure
• Device restrictions Windows 10 - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/device-restrictions-windows-10

Summary

So there you have it, with Microsoft Intune, you can easily customize Microsoft Edge favorites and deploy them to your Windows 10 devices.

cheers

niall