Problem Installing Microsoft Edge MSI with EdgeUpdate Policy Is Configured

[Jeffrey_Fronius]

I've noticed a problem with installing Edge Stable (tested on 83.0.478.54) when attempting to install by with the MSI.  We're applying the InstallDefault = 0 and UpdateDefault = 0 policies to prevent Edge from automatically updating.  Our update strategy will be to deploy Edge periodically with SCCM.

As a work-around, I can remove the "InstallDefault" regedit, perform the install, then perform a group policy update.

[#2]

@Jeffrey_Fronius Thanks for reaching out and reporting this. I'll loop in our Enterprise team and let you know if they have any insights to share.

Fawkes (they/them)
Project & Community Manager - Microsoft Edge

[#3]

Hey @Jeffrey_Fronius,

The InstallDefault policy is probably blocking installation -- InstallDefault==0 corresponds to "don't allow Edge installation". The UpdateDefault policy is sufficient to prevent the browser from updating. If you set InstallDefault to "Not Configured" (or Configured/one of the allowed values) you should be good to go.

Thanks,

Andy

[#4]

The policy documentation seems to state this only impacts installing through edge update, not when installing through other methods. Perhaps I'm reading into it wrong. If we in fact don't need this to suppress automatic updating, then I'll look to remove it.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-update-policies#installdefault
Allow installation default
Microsoft Edge Update 1.2.145.5 and later

Description
You can specify the default behavior of all channels to allow or block Microsoft Edge updates when Microsoft Edge Update is used.

You can override this policy for individual channels by enabling the 'Allow installation' policy for specific channels.

If you disable this policy, the installation of Microsoft Edge through Microsoft Edge Update is blocked. This only affects the installation of Microsoft Edge software only when users are running Microsoft Edge Update and when they haven't configured the 'Allow installation' policy.

This policy doesn't prevent Microsoft Edge Update from running or prevent users from installing Microsoft Edge software using other methods.

[#5]

Hey @Jeffrey_Fronius,

Agreed that the docs for InstallDefault need to be more clear about the behavior - I will follow up on that, thank you for the feedback. It's actually our installer (which is shared across all deployment types -- EdgeUpdate/MSI/WSUS/etc.) that reads the InstallDefault key. Let me know if you hit any additional issues.

Thanks again,

Andy

[#6]

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@Jeffrey_Fronius wrote:
The policy documentation seems to state this only impacts installing through edge update, not when installing through other methods. Perhaps I'm reading into it wrong. If we in fact don't need this to suppress automatic updating, then I'll look to remove it.

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Edge MSI package bundle Microsoft Edge Update as well, and it's what's used to perform the installation

you can inspect MSI with Orca or InstEd and see InstallCommand
something like

MicrosoftEdgeUpdateSetup.exe /silent /install "[ProductTag]" /installsource enterprisemsi[OptOmahaArgs] /appargs ..