[Forum FAQ] How to customize the default homepage of IE InPrivate Browsing using Process Monitor

Scenario：

InPrivate Browsing enables you to surf the web without leaving a trail in Internet Explorer, more information about Inprivate Browsing can be found inInPrivate Browsing. When you start InPrivate Browsing, you will be presented with a default homepage. This article describes how to customize the default homepage of IE InPrivate Browsing using a tool named Process Monitor.

Method:

Step 1: Use Process monitor to find the related registry key.

The picture below is default IE InPrivate Browsing homepage by design, you may want to change it and set another webpage as you want.

We can use Process Monitor to capture all the processes when we start InPrivate Browsing.

1. Open Process Monitor, and set the filter, as there’re many processes running on the background, we only need the processes about IE, there’re many choices for you to filter out what you want, like PID\Path\Architecture… etc. Here, we chose this: Process Name, and type “iexplore.exe”. The figure is shown in the following link: https://bbqfqa.bn1304.livefilestore.com/y2p8Anl7uxOfnyER5PKAAqlxMEyEDXPy7Kiyd0Is422simYuRZ0U9gpktSNl6QqWLNd1Z8nyvbXxhd48GSdVXJGcF-GKx1qt0I0Q0SOVnU8cyg/1.PNG?psid=1
2. After all IE processes are filtered out, we click the “registry” icon because we suspect that the default homepage of InPrivate Browing might be related with something stored in registry, then the tool will show us how IE accesses the registry entry during the InPrivate Browsing starting process.
3. To quickly find the entry we need, click Edit\Find, then type “inprivate” to help us locate to the right entries, the keyword depends on the case we’re handling. The figure is shown in the following link: https://bbqfqa.bn1304.livefilestore.com/y2pQQSfqnrMV7VZQJVdpZ6gMpuPb3LznLDjAlo4rUsbtnXYq2JGnGEPNKWx7kOJur-v4hjc881BOsPRmof4A7A0Z29c6jN0EligP9cvcVBdBY0/2.PNG?psid=1
4. According to the filtered result which as shown in the following figure, there are two related entries:HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs\InPrivate HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs\InPrivate                                  NOte: If we’re in a 32 bit system, we will only found one related entry: HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs\InPrivate.The two entries both have the value res://ieframe.dll/inprivate.htm which is the default homepage of InPrivate Browsing by design, then we suspect that these 2 registry keys could be what we want to figure out. The figure is shown in the following link:  https://bbqfqa.bn1304.livefilestore.com/y2pt8AclVZlU-S-ij9Ly2M9bZ7iGJMz0_14SMStPqTB77r0DQlUkXaH3-xukAC8o0aqvoAAbi4-3DC_SDiTlOqcFdsxbTjKv8Zfbl7nk6GrSn8/3.PNG?psid=1 

Step 2: Verify the keys and customize the default page in IE InPrivate Browsing.Note: Before you make changes to a registry key or subkey, we recommend that you export, or make a backup copy, of the key or subkey.

Now let’s see which registry key is controlling this setting (maybe both), change each one to see the results.

If OS is 64 bits system, we will find that the only need is to modify the value

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs\InPrivate

If OS is 32 bits system, we will find that the only need is to modify the value

HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs\InPrivate

For example, we change it to http://www.microsoft.com, then restart PC. After starting IE InProvate Browing, we directly get the result which is shown as in the following link:

https://bbqfqa.bn1304.livefilestore.com/y2p_GZD8KyDFQnRQAXVzXocyEaDS4Eq0gSujaKrqNDT0BJT7ufrFctkjt418h8H1NVdMc_QHO_Hi6D2N4gEGiDMo3rEhfaze6jzM8NpZkWtq-Q/4.PNG?psid=1

Apply to:

• Internet Explorer 8
• Internet Explorer 9
• Internet Explorer 10
• Internet Explorer 11

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