Hi All,
Thank you in advance for reading my post. I am having trouble locking down IE11 on Win7 Pro. Let me start off with my goal. I am trying to stop the users on stand alone machines (No AD) from typing URL’s into both the IE’s “Address bar” and the Start Menu’s “Search/Run” box and going to their websites of choice while still giving them the functionality of Tabbed Browsing. I have created Links to allow them to go where they need to go.
I also have a Web Proxy server in play, but due to the nature and the way some websites are built, I can’t be too restrictive with it, otherwise some of the websites I do need to go to won’t load or function correctly as they themselves call upon other websites to work.
Of all the research and online searching I’ve done, I found the following registry entries to help me in my quest:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Infodelivery\Restrictions]
"NoSearchBox"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions]
"NoFileOpen"=dword:00000001
"NoFileNew"=dword:00000001
"NoBrowserOptions"=dword:00000001
"NoSelectDownDir"=dword:00000000
"NoTheaterMode"=dword:00000001
"NoBrowserContextMenu"=dword:00000001
"NoFindFiles"=dword:00000001
"NoOpeninNewWnd"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemTipOfTheDay"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemNetscapeHelp"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemTutorial"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemSendFeedback"=dword:00000001
"NoViewSource"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpMenu"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbars]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbars\Restrictions]
"NoToolbarOptions"=dword:00000001
"NoAddressBar"=dword:00000001
"NoNavBar"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing]
"Enabled"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSearchCommInStartMenu"=dword:00000001
"NoSearchInternetInStartMenu"=dword:00000001
All the above registry entries worked with Win XP Pro. However, now that I moved to Win7 Pro and IE11 and added some additional keys for Win7, the only way I can hide the “Address Bar” is to disable the Navigation Bar completely, NoNavBar=1 which also by default disables the Tabbed Browsing even if I move the Tab bar down to its own location separate from the address bar. The functionality is still there, you can use Alt + Tab to toggle through the tabs, but you just can’t see the tabs anymore even if I specifically have it turned on with a registry key entry, and my users just can’t get the hang of using the keyboard shortcuts to navagate the tabs, and in this scenario, it is less productive to use keyboard shortcuts anyway. Also even though I think I have Internet searches turned off for the “Search/Run” box of the Start Menu with a registry entry, I can still type a URL and IE will launch to that page. I have also tried configuring the HOSTS file to restrict traffic, but not only did that not work, I don't think that would be a good solution considering the fact of load balancers and fail-overs used to manage the major websites. I have also looked into Group Policies, and what I could find there that sounded like it would do what I needed, didn't work either.
At this point, I don’t know if this is a bug, I’m doing something wrong or I’m leaving some registry key out.
If anyone can offer any suggestions or point me in a direction where I can find the answers to my problems, I would greatly appreciate it. I also want to say thanks to all the websites that I found the above registry entries at.
Thanks,
Andy
Thank you in advance for reading my post. I am having trouble locking down IE11 on Win7 Pro. Let me start off with my goal. I am trying to stop the users on stand alone machines (No AD) from typing URL’s into both the IE’s “Address bar” and the Start Menu’s “Search/Run” box and going to their websites of choice while still giving them the functionality of Tabbed Browsing. I have created Links to allow them to go where they need to go.
I also have a Web Proxy server in play, but due to the nature and the way some websites are built, I can’t be too restrictive with it, otherwise some of the websites I do need to go to won’t load or function correctly as they themselves call upon other websites to work.
Of all the research and online searching I’ve done, I found the following registry entries to help me in my quest:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Infodelivery\Restrictions]
"NoSearchBox"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Restrictions]
"NoFileOpen"=dword:00000001
"NoFileNew"=dword:00000001
"NoBrowserOptions"=dword:00000001
"NoSelectDownDir"=dword:00000000
"NoTheaterMode"=dword:00000001
"NoBrowserContextMenu"=dword:00000001
"NoFindFiles"=dword:00000001
"NoOpeninNewWnd"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemTipOfTheDay"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemNetscapeHelp"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemTutorial"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpItemSendFeedback"=dword:00000001
"NoViewSource"=dword:00000001
"NoHelpMenu"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbars]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbars\Restrictions]
"NoToolbarOptions"=dword:00000001
"NoAddressBar"=dword:00000001
"NoNavBar"=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing]
"Enabled"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoSearchCommInStartMenu"=dword:00000001
"NoSearchInternetInStartMenu"=dword:00000001
All the above registry entries worked with Win XP Pro. However, now that I moved to Win7 Pro and IE11 and added some additional keys for Win7, the only way I can hide the “Address Bar” is to disable the Navigation Bar completely, NoNavBar=1 which also by default disables the Tabbed Browsing even if I move the Tab bar down to its own location separate from the address bar. The functionality is still there, you can use Alt + Tab to toggle through the tabs, but you just can’t see the tabs anymore even if I specifically have it turned on with a registry key entry, and my users just can’t get the hang of using the keyboard shortcuts to navagate the tabs, and in this scenario, it is less productive to use keyboard shortcuts anyway. Also even though I think I have Internet searches turned off for the “Search/Run” box of the Start Menu with a registry entry, I can still type a URL and IE will launch to that page. I have also tried configuring the HOSTS file to restrict traffic, but not only did that not work, I don't think that would be a good solution considering the fact of load balancers and fail-overs used to manage the major websites. I have also looked into Group Policies, and what I could find there that sounded like it would do what I needed, didn't work either.
At this point, I don’t know if this is a bug, I’m doing something wrong or I’m leaving some registry key out.
If anyone can offer any suggestions or point me in a direction where I can find the answers to my problems, I would greatly appreciate it. I also want to say thanks to all the websites that I found the above registry entries at.
Thanks,
Andy