WebAppInstallForceList not adding shortcuts to the desktop

[EliLoewen]

I'm trying to test deploying a PWA using the WebAppInstallForceList policy on Edge 88 with the following:

[{ "create_desktop_shortcut": true, "default_launch_container": "window", "url": "https://service.example.com/"}]

The problem is that the PWA gets installed but its not creating a desktop shortcut. Manually trying to pin the desktop shortcut at edge://apps/ also does nothing.

When the WebAppInstallForceList policy is disabled and the PWA is installed manually I can pin the desktop shortcut at edge://apps/ just fine.

How would I go about troubleshooting this?

[#2]

@EliLoewen Hi!  I compared your code snippet to our documentation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployedge/microsoft-edge-policies#compact-example-value-13 and I did notice there is an additional space at the beginning of your example.  After the { and before "create_desktop_shortcut".  

Hopefully it just needs that little change.  

After trying that, if it is still not working as expected can you please submit feedback/diagnostic data through the browser? ("..." menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback).  Thanks! 

-Kelly

[#3]

In our testing, after the policy is installed, the user must open Edge for the shortcut to be added to the desktop. Is this the intended behavior? It's an issue for us, as many of our users don't use Edge as their default browser and wouldn't normally open it, in which case they would have no idea the PWA existed. We played around with adding a script to the GPO that would open and close Edge but this is unexpected for the user and in our testing Edge had to be opened for up to 10 seconds before the shortcut appeared.

[#4]

@TriangleSolDev Hello!  Yes, that is the expected behavior.  The browser needs to run at least once after a change to the WebAppInstallForceList to either install or remove the apps in that list. 

-Kelly

[#5]

I can confirm the same, if I take the same gpo and configure it for chrome I can confirm it works normally.

I can create a shortcut manually after the gpu applies, however, the GPO fails to create the shortcut automatically if I specify the value to true when it is applied to edge.

[#6]

@bwitzigFH Hello!  It looks like we recently released a fix for a similar issue which is available in MS Edge Canary Channel Build 93.0.939.0+.  Would you be able to test on the new build and see if your issue is resolved?  Thanks! 

-Kelly