Microsoft Edge 7



Microsoft Edge enhances and extends the browser experience. It runs on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices.

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Right on schedule, Microsoft today launched its new Edge browser based on Google’s Chromium open source project. You can download Chromium Edge now for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and macOS directly from microsoft.com/edge in more than 90 languages. This is Edge 79 stable, for those who like tracking version numbers. Edge 80 is slated to arrive in early February, and afterwards Microsoft will stick to a six-week cadence for stable releases, just like with Chrome.

However, Microsoft is building a new Chromium-based Edge browser, and it will be available for Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. We will update this guide when the new Edge is made available to Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1. Get Microsoft Edge for iOS and Android. Learn more: Accessibility with Microsoft Edge Skip to main content. Microsoft Edge is the official browser from Microsoft that represents a total revolution with respect to the classic Internet Explorer. With a completely updated interface, it couldn’t be easier to access any of the features the browser offers. Although the first versions that arrived with Windows 10 were based on the same Explorer engine. Microsoft edge for non-windows devices. If you live in (or are a business with a principal place of business in) the united states, please read the “binding.

Microsoft has yet to lay out which features will ship in Edge 80, Edge 81, and so on. When asked what to expect from the next few Edge releases, a spokesperson said developers and users should use the beta releases as an indication. If you want to peek at the pipeline, download one of the Edge Insider Channels: Beta (updated every six weeks), Dev (updated weekly), or Canary (updated daily). Insider builds can be installed side by side with Edge stable. Update: Microsoft has published a support article that lists features in the works and requests that are not currently on the roadmap.

It’s worth noting that the new Microsoft Edge, as Microsoft is calling it, has a fresh logo. For the first time in decades, Microsoft’s browser is not denoted with a blue “e” — the logo is a wave, presumably for “surfing” the web.

Today’s debut has been a long time coming. Back in December 2018, Microsoft embraced Chromium for Edge development on the desktop. In April 2019, Microsoft released the first Chromium Edge builds (daily Canary and weekly Dev channels), and the Chromium Edge Beta channel followed in August 2019. In November 2019, Microsoft launched the Chromium Edge release candidate and positioned Edge and Bing as “the browser and search engine for business.” Microsoft today shared that the Insider builds have gotten “millions” of downloads. Now we’ll see if the stable release can get traction.

Features and performance

Microsoft plans to ship more consumer Edge features later this year, but this launch is largely targeted at businesses. That means AAD support, Internet Explorer mode, and Microsoft Search in Bing integration. Business and education IT administrators can download offline packages and policies for Chromium Edge. Many businesses already use Chrome and at least one Microsoft browser (Internet Explorer and/or Edge) — Microsoft is hoping these features will get them to switch to using just Chromium Edge.

Business features aside, there’s also support for Chrome-based extensions, 4K streaming, Dolby audio, inking in PDF, and privacy tools. For the last one, it’s worth noting that tracking prevention is on by default and offers three levels of control, like Firefox’s tracking protection.

Chrome extension support is probably the most important feature for most users. By default, extensions that have been ported over to Edge can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store. Chromium Edge also has an option to “Allow extensions from other stores” to get Chrome extensions from the Chrome Web Store.

There are still a few features missing from Chromium Edge, most notably history sync and extension sync. Microsoft is working on these and some other inking functionality that it still wants to port from legacy Edge, as Microsoft is calling it.

Microsoft also claims that Chromium Edge is twice as fast as legacy Edge. Curiously, the team isn’t making any claims against other browsers — at least not yet. In fact, our own testing shows Chromium Edge has solid performance.

EdgeMicrosoft Edge 7

The bigger picture here is that by leaning on Chromium, Microsoft no longer has to worry about “fixing” its underlying browser engine EdgeHTML. The company can instead improve Chromium itself, which helps all browsers that use the codebase, not just Chromium Edge. Microsoft says over the past year it has made more than 1,900 contributions to Chromium across areas like accessibility, touch, speech, and digital inking.

On the flip side, Edge is now just another Chromium-based browser. That makes it all the harder to offer a differentiated experience. Having failed with EdgeHTML, Microsoft figures Chromium is worth a shot.

Installing the new Edge: Manual or Automatic

If you’re running Windows 10 and don’t install Edge manually, you’ll eventually get it in a future update. Microsoft plans to start rolling out the new Edge “in the coming weeks,” starting with a subset of Windows Insiders in the Release Preview ring. The process will ramp up to more users “over the next several months.” It will be made gradually available on Windows Update and offered to additional devices “as data and feedback indicate that users are having a good experience.” Microsoft currently has no plans to automatically upgrade Managed, Enterprise, Education, or Workstation Pro Edition devices (documentation). If you want to block automatic delivery of the new Edge to Home and Pro devices, you can do so either via policies or the Blocker Toolkit.

When you install the new Edge on Windows 10, it will replace legacy Edge. Any shortcuts you have on the desktop, taskbar, or Start Menu will be updated to new Edge. The executable for legacy Edge is technically hidden, but it will be removed eventually. Your favorites, passwords, form fill information, and basic settings will carry over from legacy Edge to new Edge automatically. If you have Chrome or Firefox installed, new Edge will ask if you want to import those settings from there. Web apps built on EdgeHTML and Edge preview channels will continue to work without interruption. Depending on how up-to-date your Windows 10 installation is, you may be asked to install additional updates. A future version of Windows 10 will skip all this and include new Edge by default.

When you install new Edge on Windows 7, Windows 8, and macOS, it will work just like installing any other browser. New Edge will not replace whatever you have as the default (whether that’s Internet Explorer, Safari, or a third-party browser). Yesterday, Microsoft ended support for Windows 7, so it’s notable the company is still releasing new Edge for the decade-old operating system. It shows just how big Windows 7 still is — about one in four computers run it.

On Android and iOS, new Edge will replace old Edge automatically. That said, not much is new on mobile — Edge already uses Blink/Chromium on Android and WebKit/WKWebView on iOS. But you can expect the new logo, similar user interface to the desktop versions, and tracking prevention on iOS (coming soon to Android). More desktop features will make their way to Android and iOS over time.

Lastly, Microsoft’s FastTrack and App Assure programs cover Chromium Edge. The former means Microsoft will help you deploy Edge to your organization at no extra charge with an eligible subscription to Microsoft 365, Azure, or Dynamics 365. The latter means if your sites work in Internet Explorer 8 and above, Chrome, or legacy Edge, then they’ll work on the new Edge. If not, Microsoft will help you fix them at no additional cost.

Edge

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Use the following information to configure Microsoft Edge policy settings on your Windows devices.

Note

This article applies to Microsoft Edge version 77 or later.

Configure policy settings on Windows

You can use group policy objects (GPO) to configure policy settings for Microsoft Edge and managed Microsoft Edge updates on all versions of Windows. You can also provision policy through the registry for Windows devices that are joined to a Microsoft Active Directory domain, or Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise instances enrolled for device management in Microsoft Intune. To configure Microsoft Edge with group policy objects, you install administrative templates that add rules and settings for Microsoft Edge to the group policy Central Store in your Active Directory domain or to the Policy Definition template folder on individual computers and then configure the specific policies you want to set.

You can use Active Directory group policy to configure Microsoft Edge policy settings if you prefer to manage policy at the domain level. This enables you to manage policy settings globally, targeting different policy settings to specific OUs, or using WMI filters to apply settings only to users or computers returned by a particular query. If you want to configure policy on individual computers, you can apply policy settings that only affect the local device using the Local Group Policy Editor on the target computer.

Microsoft Edge supports both mandatory and recommended policies. Mandatory policies override user preferences and prevents the user from changing it, while recommended policy provide a default setting that may be overridden by the user. Most policies are mandatory only; a subset are mandatory and recommended. If both versions of a policy are set, the mandatory setting takes precedence. A recommended policy only takes effect when the user has not modified the setting.

Tip

You can use Microsoft Intune to configure Microsoft Edge policy settings. For more information, see Configure Microsoft Edge using Microsoft Intune.

There are two administrative templates for Microsoft Edge, both of which can be applied either at the computer or Active Directory domain level:

  • msedge.admx to configure Microsoft Edge settings
  • msedgeupdate.admx to manage Microsoft Edge updates.

To get started, download and install the Microsoft Edge administrative template.

1. Download and install the Microsoft Edge administrative template

Microsoft Edge 75

If you want to configure Microsoft Edge policy settings in Active Directory, download the files to a network location you can access from a domain controller or a workstation with the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) installed. To configure on an individual computer, simply download the files to that computer.

When you add the administrative template files to the appropriate location, Microsoft Edge policy settings are immediately available in the Group Policy Editor.

Microsoft Edge 7

Go to the Microsoft Edge Enterprise landing page to download the Microsoft Edge policy templates file (MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates.cab) and extract the contents.

Microsoft Edge 75 Download

Add the administrative template to Active Directory

  1. On a domain controller or workstation with RSAT, browse to the PolicyDefinition folder (also known as the Central Store) on any domain controller for your domain. For older versions of Windows Server, you may need to create the PolicyDefinition folder. For more information, see How to create and manage the Central Store for Group Policy Administrative Templates in Windows.

  2. Open MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates and go to windows > admx.

  3. Copy the msedge.admx file to the PolicyDefinition folder. (Example: %systemroot%sysvoldomainpoliciesPolicyDefinitions)

  4. In the admx folder, open the appropriate language folder. For example, if you’re in the U.S., open the en-US folder.

  5. Copy the msedge.adml file to the matching language folder in the PolicyDefinition folder. Create the folder if it does not already exist. (Example: %systemroot%sysvoldomainpoliciesPolicyDefinitionsEN-US)

  6. If your domain has more than one domain controller, the new ADMX files will be replicated to them at the next domain replication interval.

  7. To confirm the files loaded correctly, open the Group Policy Management Editor from Windows Administrative Tools and expand Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge. You should see one or more Microsoft Edge nodes as shown below.

Add the administrative template to an individual computer

  1. On the target computer, open MicrosoftEdgePolicyTemplates and go to windows > admx.
  2. Copy the msedge.admx file to your Policy Definition template folder. (Example: C:WindowsPolicyDefinitions)
  3. In the admx folder, open the appropriate language folder. For example, if you’re in the U.S., open the en-US folder.
  4. Copy the msedge.adml file to the matching language folder in your Policy Definition folder. (Example: C:WindowsPolicyDefinitionsen-US)
  5. To confirm the files loaded correctly either open Local Group Policy Editor directly (Windows key + R and enter gpedit.msc) or open MMC and load the Local Group Policy Editor snap-in. If an error occurs, it’s usually because the files are in an incorrect location.

2. Set mandatory or recommended policies

You can set mandatory or recommended policies to configure Microsoft Edge with the Group Policy Editor for both Active Directory and individual computers. You can scope policy settings to either the Computer Configuration or User Configuration by selecting the appropriate node as described below.

  • To configure a mandatory policy, open the Group Policy Editor and go to (Computer Configuration or User Configuration) > Policies > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge.

  • To configure a recommended policy, open the Group Policy Editor and go to (Computer Configuration or User Configuration) > Policies > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Edge – Default Settings (users can override).

3. Test your policies

On a target client device, open Microsoft Edge and navigate to edge://policy to see all policies that are applied. If you applied policy settings on the local computer, policies should appear immediately. You may need to close and reopen Microsoft Edge if it was open while you were configuring policy settings.

For Active Directory group policy settings, policy settings are propagated to domain computers at a regular interval defined by your domain administrator, and target computers may not receive policy updates right away. To manually refresh Active Directory group policy settings on a target computer, execute the following command from a command prompt or PowerShell session on the target computer:

You may need to close and reopen Microsoft Edge before the new policies appear.

Microsoft Edge Browser For Windows 7

You can also use REGEDIT.exe on a target computer to view the registry settings that store group policy settings. These settings are located at the registry path HKLMSOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftEdge.

Microsoft Edge Download

See also