How to manage favorites in Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer with Intune and Azure AD

In Windows 10 we are using many different browsers for different reasons, this is not a blog post the are saying what browser you have to use on your Windows 10, but a blog post on how to manage favorites on Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer on your Windows 10. The setting used in this blogpost is introduced in differents version of Windows 10.

The use case for manage browser is to help the enduser with some links to important websites  – in the example in my blogpost it is for the IT admin so he can follow up on what is new in EMS. Sync browser favorites between Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer so that the end user don’t need to care about what browser he is using. At the last point is to use Azure AD to store the end user personal favorites with Enterprise State Roaming.

So this blogpost is divided up in 3 sections:

1. Provision Favorites
2. Sync Favorites Between IE and MS Edge
3. Enterprise State Roaming (ESR)

You can combine the settings or use them separately.

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Provision Favorites

Pros: It allows the IT Admin to provision corporate link to the end user.
Cons: It only work with MS Edge – not other browser like Internet Explorer, Google Chrome etc.

How to setup Provision Facorites:

First you need to export a .html file with your favorites that you need to be provisioned to a user or device group. This can be done from Microsoft Edge Browser by entering settings

Then click on “import from another browser”

Click export to file

In the exported .html file you can remove what you don’t want to be provisioned to the end user.

Then you have the .html file to store in a location where the end user have access.

In this case I use Azure blob storage to store the .html file – it can also be a web server – as long as the end user has the right to access the .html file

And now I got a link that I can use in my Intune profile:
https://osddeployment.blob.core.windows.net/intunecontainer/What_is_new_Favorits.html?sp=rl&st=2018-08-12T12:15:54Z&se=2021-05-14T12:15:00Z&sv=2017-11-09&sig=fLuLfkmLEDFzT3G1RMYsQ7Xsoc7VdaezAt1buZYCILU%3D&sr=b

Start M365 Device admin center

1. Click Device Configuration
2. Click Profiles
3. Click Create profiles

1. Name: What is new – Favorites List
2. Platform : Windows 10 and later
3. Profile type: Device restrictions
4. Click Settings Configure
5. Select Microsoft Edge Browser
6. Inset the link to the .html file in Favorites List

This is how is looks like from the end user perspective:

 

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Sync Favorites Between IE and MS Edge

Pros: It help end user to have the same favorites in MS Edge and IE, and with ESR makes it possible to sync IE favorites.
Cons: It only work between IE and MS Edge – not other browser like Google Chrome

How to setup Sync Favorites Between IE and MS Edge in Intune:

Start M365 Device admin center

1. Click Device Configuration
2. Click Profiles
3. Click Create profiles

1. Name: Sync favorites between Microsoft browsers
2. Platform : Windows 10 and later
3. Profile type: Device restrictions
4. Click Settings Configure
5. Select Microsoft Edge Browser
6. Click Require at “Sync favorites between Microsoft browsers (Desktop only)”

Do the profile assignment to the user or device group you want to have this setting.

After the device sync with Intune at the next you can see in the MDMDiagReport.html report that the setting is enabled

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Enterprise State Roaming (ESR)

Pros: It sync the end user favorites and other settings to a blob storage on user object in Azure AD, the ESR data will sync to every Azure AD joined device the end user is logging in to.
Cons: It requires Azure AD P1 license, if you what to delete the ESR data for a user you need to create a Microsoft SR to the the data deleted.

Start the Azure Active Directory admin center

1. Click Azure Active Directory
2. Click Devices

1. Click Enterprise State Roaming
2. Select All or Selected
3. If you use Selected you need to specify a group of users that has Enterprise State Roaming enabled

On the device you can check if Enterprise State Roaming is working:

Start a command windows (cmd or powershell)
Run the command dsregcmd.exe /status
Check that AzureAdJoined is set to Yes

Check that WamDefaultSet is set to Yes
Check that WamDefaultGUID is not empty and the is (AzureAD) at the end

In the Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > SettingSync

 

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Read more:

Policy CSP – Browser 
Enterprise State Roaming overview

Footnote:

• 1 – Supported versions, version 1607.
• 2 – Supported versions, version 1703.
• 3 – Supported versions, version 1709.
• 4 – Supported versions, version 1803.
• 5 – Added in the next major update to Windows of Windows 10.