The title here doesn't match the article title - to fully configure the Edge browser, you need to be joined to an Active Directory domain or enrolled with Intune MDM.
For those of us with experience managing Windows environments, we know that for a long time, Microsoft have offered much more customisations for Windows and the apps to organisations. And in this case, to fully customise the Edge browser, you need to have your Windows computers joined to an AD domain, or enrolled in Intune which Microsoft is pushing as the future replacement for traditionally managed networks.
It sucks that home users can no longer customise this setting. My advice - stop using Edge. Windows 11 and Edge are incredibly hostile towards its users. I use Windows 11 daily, and it's incredibly frustrating how a generally nice OS is ruined by stupidly hostile moves by Microsoft. For example, they've gone to the effort of including a widget sidebar, but you can't fully customise it - you're forced to include a news feed of crappy articles from Microsoft-chosen publishers. Very frustrating.
Author here. Yes and no - the title here reflects the problem. Basic functionality is locked behind an arbitrary requirement for MDM. I’m not asking to define custom restrictions - I just want a blank new page. Functionality that has existed in most browsers for a long time (IE included).
This is like locking Start menu customization behind MDM. Sure, you can do this, but it’s weird stance to take.
This approach from Microsoft encourages the build of crapware tweaking tools that go on to hurt those using home computers. Instead of having a proper place in Windows to change something that is configurable users would be expected to download and install a tweaking utility - a practice that has for the longest time been accompanied by a higher than usual amount of bundled crap and malicious actors.
I'm almost at the point where I will either abandon Windows (since I don't really use proprietary software) or where if windows offered a paid subscription to be a super user and have the functionality of windows 7 alongside the security of 11 then I would fork over $20/month for that.
For Win 10 the Pro version allows disabling more telemetry than Home does and I pay extra to get computers that have Pro. I haven't yet researched Win 11 Home vs. Pro though and I will put off "upgrading" to Win 11 as long as I can as all I need Windows to do is run a web browser and the few programs I actually need without the hassles of reading the Arch wiki to fix desktop Linux issues or the hassles of Apple's non-upgradeable non-repairable computers that regularly break old software. "Oh, you spent all that time learning OpenGL did you? We're deprecating it pending future removal. Oh, you were using bash for 20+ years? Sorry, you're using zsh now."
You've reminded me of how they've gone and ruined the perfectly fine and useful Whiteboard app by requiring you to be online and logged in to your Microsoft account to use it. Huge turnoff and so irritating. There is no legitimate reason for that to be the case
Challenge with that is you lose access to a bunch of “nice-to-haves” that enable you to use Visual Studio or play games due to missing dependencies. LTSB/C is great for isolated environments that are somewhat frozen in time, but for consumer scenarios those can be full of gaps.
that's interesting, my primary (and only, really) use-case for windows is gaming. i only get games through Steam and they're mostly post-2010 titles, hoping thats the reason i havent run into dep issues yet
my motivation wasn't blocking telemetry or whatever, I just needed to squeeze every single frame out of my aging rig, and dove down the rabbit hole of optimizing win10 starting with LTSB
i had to jump back to win10 pro after a failed migration to LTSC, but i'm constantly looking for an excuse and will probably go to win11 only if there's a similar route (and then maybe even gladly :) )
Not OP, but last time I tried (1-2y ago or so) it "worked" but had severe performance issues, animation lag, input lag, etc. I played a bit with it using Grim Dawn (a diablo like action rpg).
Don't know if there were significant improvements since then.
As far as I'm aware, Microsoft are planning to continue with the LTSC versions for the foreseeable future. But I don't think it would be suitable for a home user - I'm not even sure how a home user can get hold of it? I'd love to go back to Windows 2000 - in fact there was a post on here the other day about running it in Docker on Linux!
get a hold of the license? for ltsb/c there were a few reddit threads and a few key resellers, but the instructions seemed to change every few months :(
I don't have any Windows computers these days but if I may offer a workaround for the news feed -- I'd recommend looking to running your own ad blocking DNS with pi-hole. You can get a Raspberry Pi for $30 and get the whole thing up and running in an hour.
My dad asked me the other day if he had a virus because each time he logs in, he has travel ads.
Turned out, I think what is happening is Microsoft put a travel advertisement button to the pre-login screen which is usually where the login submit button is. So when he clicks it and then logs in, he sees a browser loading.
You'd think Windows would be free with all the advertising throughout the operating system. Imagine looking down at you wrist watch and having to watch a 10s advertisement before knowing what the time was... this is the hell that is Windows.
yea, OP is going off of pricing that was in the before-times. Also I wouldn't recommend buying anything less than Raspberry Pi 3. Would recommend Raspberry Pi 4 in almost all cases simply due to its better compatibility+power. The lowest end models (2GB) right now are all extremely marked up from the original $40 to current $80.
I find that the reason I love Raspberry Pis is due to its flexibility and my ability to tinker with it. I might want to use it for a Pihole today, something else tomorrow.
I run it in a container on my NAS PC. It uses almost no resources and takes up only a few gigs of space that I wasn't already using for something else.
I already use Pi-holes for local DNS and DHCP at home, but I'm still just using the default blocklist with a couple of extras added. Might need to spend some more time looking at this...
My sister has to use Windows 10 for her business software. I never could get past all those flashing animated icons on the Start menu. Totally distracting when I'm trying to figure out how to get something to work. I'm already frustrated and they have little pictures spinning and bouncing all over the place. It's annoying as F.
I found a Chrome extension called, appropriately enough, "Empty New Tab Page" that works fine on Edge that accomplishes this without registry editing.
But yes, kind of flabbergasted when I discovered that Microsoft was strong-arming the new tab page. Apparently the lessons of 20 years ago have been forgotten in Redmond.
There's more. When you add the "Empty New Tab Page", it's disabled by default and you need to enable it manually. Then, when you open a new tab the first time, it asks if the blank tab is a mistake and if you want to revert back.
It reminds me of the early 00's when everyone was installing add-ons that hijacked the IE start page or redirect 404/DNS errors. That's the ONLY reason I can imagine that would make MS think this UX is acceptable.
I believe these protectionsaare there for good reason. I've lost count of the third party "search engines" that I've seen taking over people's homepages through extensions.
These extensions try to mimick Google and make it as hard as they possibly can to remove them. You have to remove the extension, remove the default search engine, change the homepage, and hope thst whatever crapware installed them doesn't get run again.
Chrome and Firefox have been fighting this crapware for years now and when Microsoft switched to Blink they inherited the same protection mechanisms.
You can still use these extensions, but only if you ACTUALLY want to. In most cases these alerts trigger, I don't believe the user has made a conscious choice to change their homepage.
It may be for a good reason but there should always be an option for the handful of people who know what they are doing and know that they know what they are doing to enable the functionality that they are expecting from the software.
When you deviate from industry standard (especially in a negative way) and intentionally prevent reversion back to industry standards you're doing it wrong.
> this dumbing down of browsers seems to be happening beyond Microsoft.
Add for Chromium the fact they don't give non Mac users the option to prompt a warning before exiting, because designers think that hiding an option for Windows/Linux is better for the users. Any idea what blog/book this designers (I include the GNOME ones) read that brainwashed them?
This is part of the problem - I shouldn’t rely, as a user, on a third-party extension (which does who know what in my browser) to activate functionality that was already implemented and is intentionally kept away from users unless they enroll into MDM.
The first part is indeed annoying and part of Edge.
(I agree doesn’t make sense)
But the second step is part of Chromium. Chrome shows the same alert for extensions changing the new tab page for the first time.
(Which to me makes sense)
these lessons aren’t forgotten, we all just have a lot less power now as consumers. ms knows they are so large they can dictate the behavior of all users up to and including the regulatory bodies, all of which they’ve captured. stand up for your freedom, don’t use trash, don’t be the sucker, don’t be the product.
I'd like to huff and puff about this, but Microsoft are catering to the corporate customer because that's where the money is. Windows is essentially free to the home user, so might as well monetize using alternate sources.
I think this pisses me off much less than it otherwise would because I excised Microsoft from my dependence stack a few years back. I almost like these revelations because it's further justification of my decision; I was right.
On the other hand, with a 2.5 trillion dollar market cap, Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world. I can't imagine that these reputation destructive actions add much to the company's bottom line. More likely some middle manager is adding "value" to their little fiefdom inside the company at the expense of the reputation of the company as a whole.
Here’s the thing though - even if you are running a Pro or Enterprise SKU, you still are forced to not have this functionality unless you enroll the machine into MDM. Even if you paid you’re not getting the right experience.
Virtualizing tabs, extremely customizable tab discarding, a battery efficiency mode and sidebar tab switcher are sufficient reason for me to ignore the occasional nagging to change the default search engine back to bing.
Tools are much more than just sane defaults. A bit of configuration shouldn't be a deal breaker for something you spend a significant proportion of your waking hours on.
This is a dumb myth. You can configure once and leave it. I do that, I have a dotfiles repo with about 4 commits in it, my work machines have no dotfiles and not configuration.
I wanted to comment that in 5 years it will become similar to Samsung TVs where its impossible to remove ads in the menu. However, I realized a less severe version of that is already in place on Edge and you need hacks to go around it
I may be alone, but it is hard to find a company which isn't up and coming that hasn't turned to nickle and diming and completely abusing their customers for small incremental survival.
they are trying to extend their agreement. they sold a product and now have converted it into a service. it's such a horrible practice that needs to be called out for what it is.
a failure to innovate and a parasitic attachment to the host....
I'm tired of this cat-and-mouse game. Now Microsoft knows about this workaround and in a couple of months it is gone. Then we'll try to find another way to do something that can be done easily in Firefox (but not in Chrome, where you need an extension just for that).
You can't set the new "New Tab" page to a specific URL w/o enabling the MDM "enrollment" settings the author describes. As a "home page" that URL works fine to get a blank page in Edge, but opening a new tab gets you the "New Tab" page rather than the "home page".
Cynics will tell you "because money". I don't think they're going to sell their MDM to anyone purely because they can't set an empty new tab page.
My theory is that the Edge team doesn't want the empty tab page to exist. They want everyone to use their not-quite-Google-app experience. Some of their corporate customers probably pushed back on the change, so the code is left in, but only for those big companies that protest the change.
My conclusion is simple: if you don't like the new homepage, Edge is not for you. The feature is clearly not something the developers want to support, so even if you get it to work, it's probably not going to get any priority during testing. Either swallow the Edge tab page or pick another browser, because the alternatives range from annoying to use to painful to keep working.
But in order to use intune you need to lock your self into an MS centric remote management platform so, in a way the exception though group policies is an driver for forcing people into the o365 ecosystem.
For those of us with experience managing Windows environments, we know that for a long time, Microsoft have offered much more customisations for Windows and the apps to organisations. And in this case, to fully customise the Edge browser, you need to have your Windows computers joined to an AD domain, or enrolled in Intune which Microsoft is pushing as the future replacement for traditionally managed networks.
It sucks that home users can no longer customise this setting. My advice - stop using Edge. Windows 11 and Edge are incredibly hostile towards its users. I use Windows 11 daily, and it's incredibly frustrating how a generally nice OS is ruined by stupidly hostile moves by Microsoft. For example, they've gone to the effort of including a widget sidebar, but you can't fully customise it - you're forced to include a news feed of crappy articles from Microsoft-chosen publishers. Very frustrating.