Forum Discussion
Internet Explorer Mode Flip-Flops Between On and Off
Not sure if this will help anyone, but one of the other things I discovered after much frustration was that if you add an enterprise site list or make any changes to it, Edge will take approximately 1-1.5 minutes to load the new list the next time it starts up.
You'll see an EmieSitelist.xml file pop into %localappdata%\Microsoft\Edge[version]\User Data when it's loaded. Prepopulating this file unfortunately does not change this behavior.
To clarify as well, I noticed that even if I specify a sites list in Edge at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge, IE mode will not work properly unless the Enterprise Mode Sites List is configured for Internet Explorer at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode).
Interestingly, if you configure the sites list in Edge and then remove the list from your IE Enterprise Mode key or delete the key entirely, it will continue to work on that machine. It just won't work if you start with just the Edge key on a new machine.
Haven't tried this in group policy yet but I expect it would work the same.
Thanks for the reply. I agree, this is how it should work. I can't get it to work this way in Edge Dev 80.0.345.0 in my environment, though, and it doesn't sound like I'm the only one.
I am configuring this in the registry, but will be trying group policy soon. Maybe group policy will be different. Here is how it works with the registry config:
If you take a PC that has never had an IE Enterprise Mode site list configured and add the InternetExplorerIntegrationSiteList value to your HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge key, you'll get the flip flop behavior described in this thread. If you go to edge://compat/iediagnostic, the 'Use the Enterprise Mode IE website list' will say Not set.
If you add HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Main\EnterpriseMode\SiteList and point it to your list, it will start working correctly. On the IE mode diagnostic page, you'll see your site list path.
If you then remove HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Main\EnterpriseMode\SiteList, IE mode will continue to work just fine. On the IE mode diagnostic page, the 'Use the Enterprise Mode IE website list' will be blank (rather than Not set). I believe this is because the IE Enterprise Mode creates a separate key in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode on its own. If you delete this key, the behavior will go back to flip-flopping and your diagnostics page will go back to saying 'Not set'.
To duplicate the issue, you'd need to start on a PC that's never had the IE Enterprise Mode Site List active, or delete HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Main\EnterpriseMode\SiteList and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\EnterpriseMode.
I'll update this thread after I test it with group policy.
Andrew
AndrewSAIF I struggled with the flip flop for days. I would go to the page and it was in an Edge tab. If I hit refresh the IE icon would appear. Browsing the site would be hit or miss with a refresh correcting it. I never would have thought to do the IE setting in the GPO to resolve this. The issue is resolved now and I'm pushing forward with my testing. This would allow us to dump IE11 as our native browser and only use it for the 3 websites we use that still require Silverlight and ActiveX. Thanks for posting this.