Chromium Edge on Windows 7 - Is it Compatible? Running Chromium Edge On Windows 7 may not sound like a big deal, but Chromium Edge officially came out in January 2020, right at the time when support for Windows 7 was announced to be terminated. It wouldn’t be unimaginable then that Chromium Edge would not be compatible with Windows 7.
- In this guide, you will learn the steps to enable IE Mode to load legacy websites using the Internet Explorer rendering engine on Chromium Edge for Windows 10. (You can also watch this video tutorial to configure the feature.).
- Jun 22, 2020 Microsoft's new Chromium-based Edge browser works on Windows (10, 8.1, 8, 7), Android, iOS, and macOS. Support for Linux hasn't arrived yet. Support for Linux hasn't arrived yet.
- Notwithstanding above Section 1.1 as applied to Windows 7, 8, and 8.1, the terms of the applicable Windows License Terms, or any Windows update settings you have configured, the Software periodically checks for updates, and downloads and installs them for you.
It's not a secret that the end of extended support for Windows 7 is tomorrow, and with Microsoft's Chromium-based Edge shipping for the unsupported OS the day after, there are questions about how long the browser will be supported. Google announced last week that it's committing to 18 months of support for Chrome on Windows 7, which means that Chromium is supported for as long.
![Windows Windows](/uploads/1/3/4/8/134805215/157399355.jpg)
Today, Microsoft confirmed to Neowin that it will commit to the same timeframe as Google. That means that you'll get Edge updates on Windows 7 until at least July 15, 2021.
It's likely that the company will go beyond that. Microsoft is offering Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for businesses on Windows 7 that are willing to pay up, and ESUs are available for a total of three years. Given that the Redmond firm is committed to providing Windows 7 support, even to only some users, for another three years, it seems likely that it would support the browser for as long. Of course, that also depends on Chromium support.
Whether you're eligible for ESUs or not, it's good news that at the very least, you'll have a supported browser to use. And the new Edge will still work on Windows 7 for a long time, giving everyone plenty of time to transition to Windows 10 and to see that Microsoft is not, in fact, going to extend support for Windows 7.
Update: Microsoft has updated it's statement to only say that it will support Edge on Windows 7, but not for how long. In other words, it's exactly what we already knew.
We have a new internet browser! Microsoft Edge based on Chromium, available and supported on Windows 7, 8 and 10 and most importantly in Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012/2012 R2, 2016 and 2019. This means that we now have a modern and secure browser that can be managed via Group Policy and is supported by Microsoft in a server operating system.
I have been using this browser for quite some time now and it is awesome. One of the really great features is that you are able to install browser extensions from the Google Chrome Web Store, as Google Chrome has been available for a very long time, there are a lot of available extensions.
However with that said Microsoft now finds themselves in a situation where they offer a browser based on Chromium, which is an open-source project, which then again means that Microsoft does not control the entire code in the Edge browser. I am really excited about how Microsoft will handle this in the future.
Get the Edge Installer
So, how do we get the browser up and running in a Citrix VDA? We’ll start with downloading the enterprise MSI file here:
Edge administrative templates
And while there, we’ll also grab the administrative templates which enables us to configure around 200 different settings in the browser. Remember to copy the administrative templates to your Central Store.
Edge security baseline GPO
Microsoft has also created a security baseline GPO which can be found here:
With this, we are now ready to install and configure the new Microsoft Edge browser.
Installing the Microsoft Edge browser
Before installing the browser, be aware that you will have to prevent the Citrix API hooks from latching themselves onto the Microsoft Edge process. Citrix has an article on how to disable Citrix API hooks on a per-application basis. Two options are described in the article, I am using the option for XenApp and XenDesktop 7.9 or later. So your UviProcessExcludes value name should look like this:
What you need to do is to add the msedge.exe to any existing value data. This change requires a reboot, so you will have to apply this when installing the browser.
I have created a small PowerShell script which will add the msedge.exe value to any existing value data:
Edge Browser Chromium Windows 7
The Microsoft Edge browser also creates a shortcut on the public desktop (C:UsersPublicDesktop). I always recommend deleting application shortcuts on the public desktop, as I prefer to control which application shortcuts appear on the user’s desktop. Unfortunately deleting the shortcut on the public desktop is not enough, a shortcut is also created on the user’s desktop (C:Users%username%Desktop) during first logon, even though we deleted the shortcut on the public desktop.
This behavior is not new to me, it is also seen with the Google Chrome browser .
UPDATE – 21-04-2020 (April 21st 2020): As of v81.x stable build it is now possible to use an install parameter, to prevent the creation of a desktop shortcutduring user logon, a desktop shortcut is still created in the Public user desktop folder!
The parameter is: DONOTCREATEDESKTOPSHORTCUT=TRUE
MSIEXEC /I MicrosoftEdgeEnterpriseX64.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn DONOTCREATEDESKTOPSHORTCUT=TRUE
UPDATE – 22-09-2020 (September 22nd 2020): As of v84.x stable build it is now possible to prevent the pinned Edge shortcut creation during the first launch of Edge. Like the desktop shortcut, this i achieved via a install parameter.
The parameter is: DONOTCREATETASKBARSHORTCUT=TRUE
The parameter is: DONOTCREATETASKBARSHORTCUT=TRUE
Windows 7 Edge Chromium Windows 10
Which means in install string could look like this:
MSIEXEC /I MicrosoftEdgeEnterpriseX64.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn DONOTCREATEDESKTOPSHORTCUT=TRUE DONOTCREATETASKBARSHORTCUT=TRUE
MSIEXEC /I MicrosoftEdgeEnterpriseX64.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress /qn DONOTCREATEDESKTOPSHORTCUT=TRUE DONOTCREATETASKBARSHORTCUT=TRUE
The last thing we need to do, is to disable the services and delete the scheduled tasks that are responsible for doing automatic updates of the Edge browser. As with any other application in a non-persistent setup, we will have to disable any auto-update feature.
Here is a small post-install PowerShell script which will do the shortcut cleanup and disable the services and delete the scheduled tasks responsible for the auto-update feature in Edge:
UPDATE – 21-04-2020 (april 21 2020): I have removed the edgeupdatem service from the script below, as it triggered an error in Edge and an accompanied UAC prompt, when automatic update is disabled via GPO. The master_preferences file copy is also removed.
If you have en earlier version of the script, please update it with the new information.
UPDATE – 21-04-2020 (april 21 2020): I have removed the edgeupdatem service from the script below, as it triggered an error in Edge and an accompanied UAC prompt, when automatic update is disabled via GPO. The master_preferences file copy is also removed.
If you have en earlier version of the script, please update it with the new information.
The update error received, when the edgeupdatem service is disabled:
UPDATE – 28-05-2020 (may 28 2020): I have added Remove-Item -Path “HKLM:SOFTWAREMicrosoftActive SetupInstalled Components{9459C573-B17A-45AE-9F64-1857B5D58CEE}” -Force to the install script. This prevents a pinned Edge shortcut in the taskbar from being created. There are other solutions to this issue, which I have described in this article.
Now with the Edge browser installed we can move on to some basic configuration of the browser.
Group Policy Configuration
As mentioned earlier Microsoft has a baseline security GPO, and I would recommend to import this in your current environment, obviously you will have to do some testing, but from what I have seen, the current settings shouldn’t be “destructive” meaning, that nothing is broken in the browser. I will bring one additional group policy settings to the table, which are not found in the security baseline GPO. Any additional configurations should be added to another (new) GPO which should be linked to the same OU as the baseline GPO, but with a higher link order.
So in short, you end out with two GPOs. One GPO with the Microsoft security baseline settings, and one with any additional settings you configure.
Here is what a GPO configuration and link order could look like:
If you are unfamiliar with importing GPO settings, I would recommend looking at this guide:
The benefit of doing it this way, is that when Microsoft eventually release updates to their security baseline GPO, your can safely import these updated settings to the baseline GPO or a new GPO, and still have your own custom settings apply, as they are in another GPO.
The Microsoft Edge v79.x Security Baseline GPO contains the security baseline settings from Microsoft, and as mentioned this GPO shouldn’t be modified, as it will complicate any future updates of the GPO settings.
The Microsoft Edge v79.x Additional Configuration GPO should contain whatever policy configurations that applies to your setup. In here I have configured the “Update policy override” the reason for this is that if the user manually triggers the update of Edge, the user is prompted by UAC asking for an administrative username and password, not good,
This concludes the guide and you are ready to start testing the Microsoft Edge browser in your Citrix environment and eventually releasing it to production.