MS Edge Beta has been out for some days now and the Group Policy Templates are already available for download, which are crucial for IT Pros.

You can download them here.

How to import them in the GP Editor? Easy. You can test them on your local machine first. Just copy the files msedge.admx and msedgeupdate.admx to C:\windows\PolicyDefinitions and the language .adml files to C:\windows\PolicyDefinitions\en-US.

In an Enterprise environment you normally move these files into the central group policy store, located under \\domain.com\SYSVOL\domain.com\policies\PolicyDefinitions.

After opening Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates you will see the newly imported Policies:

Now let’s specifically configure the IE Mode feature. For that we need to configure two settings. The first will configure the IE Mode and the second one lists the websites that are affected by IE Mode.

Under Microsoft Edge > Configure Internet Explorer Integration you want to select Internet Explorer Mode in order to integrate IE with the new Edge in case one of the specificied URLs is visited:

The second one is located under Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Use the Enterprise Mode IE Website List. You can use a file:///C:/local/path.xml, a \\network\path or a https://URL that hosts the XML file. I will be using a local path here.

With the MS Tool Enterprise Mode Site List Manager you can easily add or edit the site list. Just add a new URL, select the IE Mode you want to use and save it as an XML.

Now do a gpupdate /force, restart Edge and test your site. You will know that the policy has applied if you see the IE icon when you visit a site you have specified in the Enterprise Mode Site List Manager.

If you are having issues getting this to work, make sure your device has the latest Windows Updates installed, like stated in the Microsoft documentation.

Also this feature is not yet supported on Windows Server 2016 and some older versions of Windows 10.

If you have problems with MS Edge on Windows Server 2016 RDS with Citrix XenApp, you will have to exclude the process msedge.exe from Citrix hooks:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\CtxHook
REG_SZ “ExcludedImageNames”
Value “msedge.exe”

Microsoft yesterday announced in their blog post that the Beta Build of their Edge Browser is generally available.

If you don’t know yet, Microsoft is replacing “old” Edge which had the EdgeHTML rendering engine with Chromium, a rendering engine Chrome also uses.

To this day, two channels were available for use: Canary and Dev. Canary updates daily and Dev weekly. The Beta channel should be a stable release containing the properly tested features and updates every 6 weeks.

Enterprise Customers can also download the Policy Files with the Administrative Templates (.admx). Some interesting settings are roaming profiles and Internet Explorer Mode. Roaming profiles make the deployment in RDS (formerly Terminal Services) environments very appealing.

Microsoft Edge can be downloaded here – you have the option to download any of the 3 different builds.

Are you trying to delete a local Windows User Profile because something doesn’t behave the way it should? Here is a quick and easy tip to remember.

Deleting a user profile is very straightforward, if you know how to. Just deleting C:\Users\<username> is not enough though. In fact stranger things might occur if you just delete the user’s folder.

There are two ways of deleting a user profile:

Method 1: Advanced System Settings (Very easy)

By going into the Advanced System Settings you can delete a user profile. The user obviously has to be logged off, otherwise the “Delete” button will be greyed out.

Method 2: Regedit

Note: It is always a good idea to make a backup of your current Registry entries BEFORE making any changes. You could for example rename the registry key or “Export” it by right clicking on the key you want to backup. Sub-keys are also backed up.

There are cases where the user profile is not listed in the Advanced System Settings, but the user folder is present under C:\Users. In that case you can firstly delete the profile SID under

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

You do not have to know the user’s SID, the Key “ProfileImagePath” will help you determine the username associated with the SID.

After deleting the whole key (left side), you can also delete the user’s folder under C:\Users.

The next version of Windows 10 called May 2019 Update (also version 1903) is now out. It might take some time until it is available in Windows Update, but you can obviously force the installation.

This Microsoft site allows you to install the Media Creation Tool, which can download an ISO of the new Windows version. You can either create a bootable USB stick and freshly install Windows 10 or upgrade your current Windows 10 OS, without losing files and programs .

Also do not forget to check for known issues before installing.

Here are some of the interesting new features on Windows 10 version 1903:

Light Theme

Somewhere between the normal and dark theme. Warning: it is very shiny!

Windows Sandbox

Windows Sandbox is a separate environment where you can run unsafe software without harming your host OS. Hyper-V is not needed in order to run Windows Sandbox. Once you close the Sandbox all of the changes you have made are discarded.

You can activate this feature in the control panel. It is not enabled by default.

Pause Windows Updates

You can pause updates for up to 7 days. This feature is also available for Windows 10 Home Users.

Windows Search

Cortana and Windows Search are separated in the task bar.

You also have some options in the Settings to improve searching.

A better looking Game Bar

Windows + G allows you to open the game bar, which now has a lot of visual improvements. The Game Bar can also be opened while gaming. There is also a Spotify integration, which for some reason does not work on my machine.

Uninstall pre-installed modern apps

You can uninstall more modern apps like 3D Viewer, Calculator, Groove Music, Paint 3D or Sticky Notes, which you were not able to in previous versions.

So you just made a keyword search in Outlook and found that very important email from your boss. Awesome! But how can I find the path of that email, you may ask? Here is a very quick tip.

By hitting ALT+ENTER on the corresponding email, you can see some properties, including the email’s folder. In my case it is Posta in Arrivo (Inbox).

Another way of finding out, is to double-click on the email and select File on the top left of the window.

Cya!