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Keep Favorites Synced between Internet Explorer and Edge NOT available in Edge Chromium
85 does have Roaming with AD Sync to a users home drive.
So not Folder Redirection but this works. Except I cannot seem to get Collections Roaming enabled no matter how hard I try. It is "locked" when I go to Sync. So I expect that it isn't supported in AD Sync because I have not blocked it in GPO at all.
Note that the Home Drives are redirected to the server share with %homeshare%%homepath% and it does successfully add to the Edge folder on the server home drive. You can see it here. edge://sync-internals/
Edge Settings to enable the Roaming
User Configuration - Administrative Templates
Microsoft Edge
Browser sign-in settings = Enabled - Browser sign-in settings = Enable browser sign-in
Configure automatic sign in with an Active Directory domain account when there is no Azure AD domain account = Enabled - Configure automatic sign in with an Active Directory domain account when there is no Azure AD domain account Sign in and make domain account non-removable
Enable using roaming copies for Microsoft Edge profile data = Enabled
Set the roaming profile directory = Enabled
Set the roaming profile directory = ${documents}\Edge
Configure the list of types that are excluded from synchronization = Enabled - Configure the list of types that are excluded from synchronization
passwords
extensions
addressesAndMore
Enable the Collections feature = Enabled (Although this doesn't roam which I am not sure why)
Original Post.
We run a huge hospital domain with 86,000 workstations. We have extended support for Windows 7 because many of the hospital apps need IE and ActiveX to run.
We are trying to move the users off IE and onto Edge Chromium but one KEY part is missing in the Group Policies.
The "Keep Favorites Synced between Internet Explorer and Edge" NOT available in Edge Chromium Group Policy. This setting is ESSENTIAL to our clients. Favorites are stored via Folder Redirection on the Active Directory Home Drive Servers so nurses that roam between 30 machines always have their Favorites.
If their Links are not available then it will impact patient care.
We have the setting set in Microsoft Edge and it works just fine. Where is the Setting for Edge Chromium?
I don't understand why Microsoft would abandon the ability to have Favorites and Links Roam.
"If you enable this setting, employees can sync their favorites between Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge."
Chris Jackson Deleted
I'm not quite sure what's so hard to understand about the issue.
This has nothing to do with Windows 7 or with Internet Explorer specifically. How IE mode suddenly came into the picutre - I have no idea. This is all about where to store the favorites in the new Edge.
The issue is the following:
- Users are using multiple computers. To have the same desktop, documents and favorites on all those computers Microsoft's "Folder Redirection" is used and configured through GPOs.
- So Internet Explorer's favorites are stored on e.g. \\server\users\%username%\favorites
- The old Edge has a GPO that allows it to automagically sync its own favorites with Internet Explorer's favorites that are stored on that network path. If you add a favorite in either IE or the old Edge it is automagically synced to the other browser instantly.
Now the new Edge comes along and we have to face the following limitations:
- Any kind of cloud-sync or usage of Microsoft accounts is not possible due to data privacy regulations
- The new Edge is storing its favorites in the local file deep inside the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder of the user.
This causes issues for us in a number of ways.
While the first-run import of favorites (from the redirected Internet Explorer favorites) is currently broken in v80 (its supposed to be back in v81) it only provides a momentary snapshot of the redirected favorites.
The bookmarks file being a local file means that we cannot easily back it up either. And when the user receives a new PC or uses a different machine than he usually does he'll have to import all the favorites again, from the redirected Internet Explorer favorites. But all the favorites he has managed in the new Edge in the meantime are not available (or even gone for good in the case of a new PC).
Importing the same old IE favorites on different PCs will soon result in having different favorites on all those PCs. And there is no way to easily merge them either.
This is a real problem.
We really need a way to redirect the bookmarks file to a network location so that it can be:
- used from multiple PCs
- be backed up easily during the regular server backup
- not get lost when the user's PC dies or gets replaced for another reason
All this was easily doable with the redirected favorites folder used by Internet Explorer and thanks to the "keep favorites synced" GPO in the old Edge Browser.
Also, please do not suggest to use the "UserDataDir" policy. This would redirect the entire user profile to a different location. Cache and everything. It is also not quite certain whether a redirected UserDataDir can actually be used by multiple instances of Edge on different computers at the same time (locked files issue and such). But even if it was possible, we really don't want to roam 100MB+ of useless data.
All we are really looking for is the possibility to specify a network location for the "bookmarks" file that is by default stored under "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default". That's all we really want and need.
Bonus points for actually bringing back the "keep favorites synced between IE and Edge" policy that the old Edge supported. But that would really only be the cherry on top.
So not Folder Redirection but this works. Except I cannot seem to get Collections Roaming enabled no matter how hard I try. It is "locked" when I go to Sync. So I expect that it isn't supported in AD Sync.
Note that the Home Drives are redirected to the server share with %homeshare%%homepath% and it does successfully add to the proper home drive on the server.Edge Settings to enable the Roaming
User Configuration - Administrative Templates
Microsoft Edge
Browser sign-in settings = Enabled - Browser sign-in settings = Enable browser sign-in
Configure automatic sign in with an Active Directory domain account when there is no Azure AD domain account = Enabled - Configure automatic sign in with an Active Directory domain account when there is no Azure AD domain account Sign in and make domain account non-removable
Enable using roaming copies for Microsoft Edge profile data = Enabled
Set the roaming profile directory = Enabled
Set the roaming profile directory = ${documents}\Edge
Configure the list of types that are excluded from synchronization = Enabled - Configure the list of types that are excluded from synchronization
passwords
extensions
addressesAndMore
Enable the Collections feature = Enabled (Although this doesn't roam which I am not sure why)- Dylan_Snodgrass
Community Manager
It seems we have needed to review this thread once more due to arguments that are off-topic & non-constructive. The product admins and I have discussed this thread and have removed some of the recent posts that were blatantly off-topic to leave room for constructive conversation.
Please keep in mind that our admin team reserves the right to temporarily or permanently ban anyone who does not follow our code of conduct.also, tolforbes, we are continuing to keep this thread open as we understand this is an on-going issue and want to allow constructive collaboration regarding this topic.
Hi Dylan,
As a computer domain admin for going on 25 years what I don't understand is why this is so difficult to fix.
Microsoft created their own Browser Internet Explorer. It used Microsoft Folder Redirection for the Favorites Folder built into the Server-workstation domain environment and has since the first iteration decades and decades ago.
Chrome is a terrible browser for Enterprise support. It is why anyone who isn't a home user doesn't install it or use it. It is designed around 1990 technology and Linux type paths where their / don't even go in the right direction. It fills up computer harddrives with their user data and lockdown settings are limited.
The old Edge had more functionality than Chrome. Even it could be setup for Kiosks and locked down with Assigned Access.
I don't understand why Microsoft wanted to copy a browser that has so many issues but now that they have don't they have programmers on staff who can make it better than Chrome and provide the same functionality support as Internet Explorer and old Edge?
If they can do IE Mode and run IE within an Edge Browser, loading ActiveX and everything then I am SURE they must have the skilll to be able to redirect the Favorites to the FAVORITES folder in the USER profile the same as it has always been?I have a coding team and I think they could have built their own browser in less time than this thread has been open.
lforbes Thank you for expounding. Adding in Adrian_Guta who is on our Kiosk team.
Fawkes (they/them)
Program Manager & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge
Any updates here?
We are german hospital too and need to sync bookmarks between IE and Edge Chromium.
We are not really interested in to sync the whole user profile. Just import the bookmarks.
Is this possible meanwhile?
- It is possible to import favorites from IE into Edge, during the FRE. The import cannot be forced with a policy setting at this moment but this is under development,
However there is no functionality available to sync the favorites since it is the idea that you use Edge a browser and IE mode in Edge to use when this compatibility is required, Does that answer your question?Henno_Keers Thanks!
We set the policy auto import at first run, but it is not working because edge are started before policy was applied.
I dont unterstand why it is so difficult to make this work on any start of edge.
Can we trigger this manuelly to reset the first start?
- I agree, even with home users, you should be able to go to Internet Explorer and MS Edge without any pain syncing or copy-pasting websites.
Also waiting to see what happens with this - we have been wanting to get rid of IE & Chrome, but this is the one remaining roadblock.
- I suppose we should support this Uservoice request:
https://microsoftedge.uservoice.com/forums/928825-enterprise/suggestions/40312513-sync-bookmarks-favorites-on-prem-without-cloudHello everybody
With the new Edge Stable 83, synchronization now works under Windows 10 (from 1809).
You only have to set the registry value "RoamingProfileSupportEnabled" in the GPO. It is currently not in the policy template. The profile.pb is then created as in Google Chrome under% appdata% \ Microsoft \ Edge ... which contains bookmarks, AutoFill data, passwords, parts of the browser history, the browser settings and the installed extensions.- Good job everybody for trying to find a workaround/solution to an issue that shouldn't be an issue (MS just forgot about us)
This is not working for me either with version 83 Stable. What are the basic settings for this to work? So far I have these 2 settings:
RoamingProfileSupportEnabled = 1 (Registry)
and GPO - Configure Automatic sigin with an AD Directory
And one question, in my work profile, it is displaying 'not syncing' 'sync isn't available for this account' - not sure if that an issue also.
@matblo86 @nivlacckw @sheffieldc @fawkes
Hello everybody
With the new Edge Stable 83, synchronization now works under Windows 10 (from 1809).
You only have to set the registry value "RoamingProfileSupportEnabled" in the GPO. It is currently not in the policy template. The profile.pb is then created as in Google Chrome under %appdata% \ Microsoft \ Edge ... which contains bookmarks, AutoFill data, passwords, parts of the browser history, the browser settings and the installed extensions.
Hello all! Just a quick note to remind people to keep any feedback constructive as per our code of conduct. We have removed some comments that didn't meet that criteria and ultimately became off-topic. Thank you.
the new in Microsoft Edge 82.0.453.2 Dev ... Added support for the Roaming Profile Location upstream Chromium management policy
I create the "RoamingprofileSupportEnabled" and "RoamingProfileLocation" registry key under "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge but edge ignores the settings.
Under edge://sync-internals/ you can see "Local Sync Backend Enabled" is true
but local backend path is "uninitialized"?
Sync dont work 😞
I have this apparently working this afternoon on 82.0.453. Alongside the registry key (I only set RoamingProfileSupportEnabled, haven't tried changing the path and don't know if that's supported), I had to make sure browser sign-in was enabled (or forced), configure automatic AD sign-in, and make sure synchonization of data with Microsoft Sync services isn't disabled. Seems counterintuitive, but 'sync' still needs to be enabled apparently for the roaming profile support to work. To me, they're not the same thing, but it does seem to work from my preliminary tests this afternoon. It doesn't preserve collections, however.
By the way, so far we've been focusing on solving the issue and didn't give much thoughts about the issue itself.
you're after favorite syncing and want it to be secure and care about data compliance and security, no one outside Canada access it etc.
but what are the data we are talking about here? Favorites.
what are favorites? simple links to the websites.
now it comes to 2 parts:
- are the favorites pointing to online websites? then it's just a link, doesn't carry any secure data in it.
- are the favorites pointing to an internal website? no problem, even if someone outside in another country found out that link, they won't still be able to access it. why? it is "Internal" website, not accessible by people outside organization.Not trying to step on your or anyone else's toes here, but I'd appreciate if you could limit your completely unhelpful comments on this issue a little. You are not contributing anything useful to the discussion. The fact that you don't even understand the issue doesn't help here either.
Just accept the fact that Azure (any type of cloud) is not an option. This is not up for discussion.
I won't even respond to any of your other points (like us needing additional on-premise infrastructure and database servers) to keep our favorites synced. Because quite honestly, its bollocks.
Both @lforbes and I have repeatedly said what our requirements are. Please, just simply stop your Azure evangelism.
- Spoiler
narutards wrote:Not trying to step on your or anyone else's toes here, but I'd appreciate if you could limit your completely unhelpful comments on this issue a little. You are not contributing anything useful to the discussion. The fact that you don't even understand the issue doesn't help here either.
Just accept the fact that Azure (any type of cloud) is not an option. This is not up for discussion.
I won't even respond to any of your other points (like us needing additional on-premise infrastructure and database servers) to keep our favorites synced. Because quite honestly, its bollocks.
Both @lforbes and I have repeatedly said what our requirements are. Please, just simply stop your Azure evangelism.
I understand the issue, perfectly, and I don't appreciate your rudeness. I wasn't talking to you either, I was talking to the OP.
everything I said was technically and reasonable correct, with proof.
if you have a question, you should open a new topic of your own.
- Chris Jackson
Microsoft
I have a follow up question on this. Typically, for large customers who have IE dependencies but also need to use modern websites, we would recommend using IE mode. That way, from a user perspective, you just use 1 browser and we use the site list to ensure that the sites just work.
Using IE mode, you would typically just store all of your favorites in Microsoft Edge, and the browser would take care of ensuring the site works.We would still need to solve the problem of on-prem sync (which the team is currently investigating), but I'm wondering if it would this solve the problem to have a Microsoft Edge on-prem sync rather than syncing to IE? Are you familiar with IE mode? Would that work for you? If not, I'd love to hear that feedback!
Chris Jackson Deleted
I'm not quite sure what's so hard to understand about the issue.
This has nothing to do with Windows 7 or with Internet Explorer specifically. How IE mode suddenly came into the picutre - I have no idea. This is all about where to store the favorites in the new Edge.
The issue is the following:
- Users are using multiple computers. To have the same desktop, documents and favorites on all those computers Microsoft's "Folder Redirection" is used and configured through GPOs.
- So Internet Explorer's favorites are stored on e.g. \\server\users\%username%\favorites
- The old Edge has a GPO that allows it to automagically sync its own favorites with Internet Explorer's favorites that are stored on that network path. If you add a favorite in either IE or the old Edge it is automagically synced to the other browser instantly.
Now the new Edge comes along and we have to face the following limitations:
- Any kind of cloud-sync or usage of Microsoft accounts is not possible due to data privacy regulations
- The new Edge is storing its favorites in the local file deep inside the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder of the user.
This causes issues for us in a number of ways.
While the first-run import of favorites (from the redirected Internet Explorer favorites) is currently broken in v80 (its supposed to be back in v81) it only provides a momentary snapshot of the redirected favorites.
The bookmarks file being a local file means that we cannot easily back it up either. And when the user receives a new PC or uses a different machine than he usually does he'll have to import all the favorites again, from the redirected Internet Explorer favorites. But all the favorites he has managed in the new Edge in the meantime are not available (or even gone for good in the case of a new PC).
Importing the same old IE favorites on different PCs will soon result in having different favorites on all those PCs. And there is no way to easily merge them either.
This is a real problem.
We really need a way to redirect the bookmarks file to a network location so that it can be:
- used from multiple PCs
- be backed up easily during the regular server backup
- not get lost when the user's PC dies or gets replaced for another reason
All this was easily doable with the redirected favorites folder used by Internet Explorer and thanks to the "keep favorites synced" GPO in the old Edge Browser.
Also, please do not suggest to use the "UserDataDir" policy. This would redirect the entire user profile to a different location. Cache and everything. It is also not quite certain whether a redirected UserDataDir can actually be used by multiple instances of Edge on different computers at the same time (locked files issue and such). But even if it was possible, we really don't want to roam 100MB+ of useless data.
All we are really looking for is the possibility to specify a network location for the "bookmarks" file that is by default stored under "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default". That's all we really want and need.
Bonus points for actually bringing back the "keep favorites synced between IE and Edge" policy that the old Edge supported. But that would really only be the cherry on top.
- Hey,
The problem is very well explained!
I have the same issue and can totally understand what you are dealing with.
Did you manage to find a workaround for this?
I would be interested to find a solution.
I also need a both ways sync of favorites between edge chromium and internet explorer
lforbes We're sorry to hear that you're encountering issues with syncing favorites! I will pass this along to our Edge Enterprise team ASAP, and hopefully we can get some valuable insights for you. In the meantime, can you please confirm the Edge version/build and the OS that you're using? (Are they all Windows 7?)
Thanks,
Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft EdgeDeleted
It is Windows 10 1903 and 1909 that we are using. Classic Edge right now synchs favorites to IE located on users home drives. Chromium Edge doesn't work.
We don't use Chrome because it downloads up to 1GB of useless profile crap into users LocalAppData Profiles and when you have 1000 hospital nurses logging into a computer with a 500GB SSD, adding 1000GB of "temp" crap fills the drive and shuts down the computers from functioning.
Also Chrome has limited lockdown capabilities and Google is well known for violating privacy and recording everything that users do and uploading it to Google Ad Servers.
We are happy to use new Chromium Edge but it needs to behave more like Microsoft and less like Google as far as functionality for a Corporate world.Deleted
Windows 10 1903 - New Edge Chrome. Enterprise Build
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/business/download79.0.309.71 Version.
Group Policy is under original Edge. We also have the new Microsoft Edge ADMX templates installed on our Domain Controllers. The new Edge GPOs do not contain the "keep favorites synched" option that the original Edge GPOs do.
MissyQ Elliot Kirk Deleted
