Edge Sync w/ MS 365 Basic and Business Standard

RVC 

I recently spent several weeks going back-and-forth with Microsoft 365 support - they insisted that I needed to purchase an AIP subscription to make Microsoft Edge sync work. Only this thread convinced me that this was not true.

After reading through the various pieces of advice, I have come up with the following steps that have successfully enabled Microsoft Edge sync on two different tenants - both with only Microsoft 365 Business Standard licenses. I am confident that this will work for you too, but I would be grateful for any feedback (especially if it works for you!)

Before following these steps, it is recommended that the user create a backup of their favorites

Azure Information Protection (AIP) setup (by way of Rights Management Adhoc licensing)

1. Download and install https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54536
2. Launch Azure Information Protection Viewer & click “Need an account? Sign Up”
   1. In the browser window that opens, log in with a Global Administrator account from the desired Microsoft 365 tenant
   2. Enter the e-mail account of the global administrator account and click ‘sign up’
      1. You’ll be redirected to “You have an account with us” – continue signing in with the global administrator user account
      2. Click ‘Start’ when prompted
         1. You’ll know it has finished when you reach the page “Azure Information Protection helps protect your organization's sensitive data”
      3. Confirm that Rights Management Adhoc licensing has been assigned to your tenant (there should be 10,000 licenses, one assigned to the global administrator user account)
3. Ensure that the desired users are assigned the Rights Management Adhoc license
1. It may take some time for these assignments to propagate – it took about 15 minutes in my case

Microsoft Edge sync setup

(The follow steps will be needed for each user setting up Microsoft Edge sync)

1. Log out of your browser profile on ALL devices
2. Log back into one browser profile
   1. Sync should now work – if it does not, read below
      1. It may be necessary to perform a sync reset – to do so return to step one and continue to the steps below
      2. Immediately after freshly logging into a browser profile, navigate to edge://settings/profiles/sync
      3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Still having sync problems? Try another option”
      4. Click “Reset sync”
      5. Wait for the process to complete
      6. Return to step 1  – synchronization should work normally
      7. (FYI: The status of synchronization can be monitored at edge://sync-internals/)

This solution should be credited to the following users - who also have my sincerest thanks! - whose posts informed this guide:
MichaelArroyoKM (particularly this post explaining the need for Microsoft Azure Information Protection Viewer)
maieredvmanuel (for confirming that running the Microsoft Azure Information Protection Viewer installs the necessary Rights Management Adhoc licensing)

mezzoly  (for highlighting the possibility of needing reset sync and for sharing the steps taken in their own [successful!] efforts to address this issue, especially the recommendation to use edge://signin-internals and edge://policy/)

deemehta (for sharing the solution to the technical problem 😉 of 'blockage' [which I had with one user myself])