How to change homepage by Registry in Edge Browser

Question

I want to change the homepage in the Edge browser via Registry but it's encrypted and I see (Protected - It is a violation of Windows Policy to modify. See aka.ms/browserpolicy) in Registry. Please help me to edit homepage in Registry or find where it's a violation of Windows policy to modify. See aka.ms/browserpolicy

Answer 1

If it is only the homepage in Edge you want to set then change the URL below to your preference and then save this as a .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppContainer\Storage\microsoft.microsoftedge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\MicrosoftEdge\Main]
"HomeButtonEnabled"=dword:00000001
"HomeButtonPage"="https://www.google.com/"

Answer 2

No need to do it in registry. You can now change the homepage via the settings in Microsoft Edge

Answer 3

Currently it is not possible to change the startpage of Microsoft Edge writing string or binary value into the registry. The entry to change is "Protected - It is a violation of Windows Policy to modify. See aka.ms/browserpolicy" -> Value "ProtectedHomepages". The value is a encrypted binary value, in which the current homepage is not readable. When you have to set a specific homepage more than one time and you want to do it with C# here a Workaround:

Set the startpage you want via UI of the Microsoft Edge browser. After Change of it restart the browser and export the registrykey named above. Open the exported file and copy the binary data into a string constant or resource in your C# Solution. In the function to write this Setting you can copy the string into a byte-Array and than writing as binary value into the registry. This entry has effect after restart of Microsoft Edge.

The same way you should use also when you want to Change the Default Search Provider. But in this case in addition to the value "ProtectedSearchScopes" one more registrykey is to use -> "OpenSearch". This key does/should exists by third Party search Providers only. This key should be deleted or does not exist if the search Provider is Bing.

Answer 4

ProtectedHomepages value is not really encrypted, instead it is an obfuscated buffer which contains homepages strings and the cryptographic hash for these strings. Buffer is obfuscated using the random generated seed which is also stored as a part of the buffer. I have done some reverse engineering research and published the results here.

So, basically, reading and decrypting this value is easier than modifying due to the required crypto-hash. However, reading capability is the only required for anti-malware software. I don't know what reasons you have to modify this value, hopefully you are not writing a piece of malware...

Answer 5

Also...

Some malware will change the Edge homepage. You can see the malicious URL in address bar, record it.

Kill Edge with Task Manager or reboot.

Edit your hosts file in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc, from an Administrative command prompt go to that directory and type notepad hosts and hit Enter.

Add a host entry like this 127.0.0.1 bad.url (substitute the URL you recorded above for bad.url)

Save the hosts file then open Edge. This method is helpful when you are remoted in and cannot disconnect the network connection.

Answer 6

1. Disable your computer's network interface
2. Launch MS Edge. The recovery page will error out
3. Open a new MS Edge tab
4. Close the MS Edge tab containing the error message
5. Close MS Edge
6. Enable your computer's network interface
7. Launch MS Edge