Forum Discussion
GPO Force InPrivate browsing setting breaks webview2 client.
artroy ,
A few questions/suggestions:
- You mentioned "multi app use": Is this referring to the multi-app kiosk mode in Windows? If not, have you tried evaluating this mode for your needs? Set up a multi-app kiosk on Windows 10 - Configure Windows | Microsoft Docs
- This mode locks Windows down to only the allowed apps and prevents the regular taskbar and "normal" start menu from showing up.
- Here's an example solution post that maybe of relevance to your needs: Setup an Edge Chromium based Kiosk device with Microsoft Intune | (inthecloud247.com)
- You mentioned trying out Edge kiosk as an attempt to migrate from WebView2, though, "After making that change all webview2 clients threw an error upon launch" indicates the apps are still using WebView2. Is this still a requirement?
- Instead of forcing InPrivate mode, have you tried other policies to prevent users from modifying settings? Here are some suggestions:
- AddressBarEditingEnabled - though this would mean users CANNOT modify the address bar contents at all
- URLBlocklist and/or URLAllowlist
Let us know how this goes 🙂
- You mentioned "multi app use": Is this referring to the multi-app kiosk mode in Windows? If not, have you tried evaluating this mode for your needs? Set up a multi-app kiosk on Windows 10 - Configure Windows | Microsoft Docs
Microsoftartroy Hello! It is my understanding that the error is the expected behavior.
Here are a few links from the WebView2Feedback GitHub discussing. You should be able to reach out to the team there for further assistance.
- How to launch Webview2 InPrivate or incognito mode · Issue #1520 · MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback (github.com)
- incognito mode support · Issue #779 · MicrosoftEdge/WebView2Feedback (github.com)
Just to note, if you move to kiosk mode it will run Microsoft Edge InPrivate sessions. Configure Microsoft Edge kiosk mode | Microsoft Docs
-Kelly
Kelly_Y thanks for the response and good info. KIOSK mode works well for us in most situations. The main issue we have is that a user can click the start key and get to the taskbar, once at the taskbar they can right click Edge and click open new window and that new window will not be in KIOSK. Is there a way to prevent this behavior?
- Kelly_Y
artroy Hi! Are you using the Digital/Interactive Signage experience or Public-Browsing experience? Also, do you have it set up as a Single app kiosk or Multi-app kiosk? Can you also share what version of MS Edge you are using and OS version? Thanks!
-Kelly
Kelly_Y We are using the full screen signage experience. We use GPO to create Edge web link tiles in the start menu. The web links call the site using "--kiosk "http://www.contoso.com" --edge-kiosk-type=fullscreen". We currently have multi app use on these devices as some of them require the use of other programs. We are using 20h2 and 21h2 at this time and the version of Edge is 99.0.1150.46.
If I set it to use public browsing that does force the link to open to InPrivate but they can still right click in the taskbar and open a new Edge window that will be in a none private mode. Using IE kiosk mode allows right click on the taskbar and the new IE window that opens is still in a locked down state.
