February 2023 – Phil’s Blog

Hi everyone

With the end of Internet Explorer this month, if you update your computer, I wanted to talk a bit the enterprise site list manager of Microsoft.

It’s a nice tool to create a list of site that need IE mode inside Edge.

Keep in mind that if you hardcode a shortcut, ie; “iexplorer.exe https://link_to_go” the redirection no longer work, as the update make Edge display the EOL of Internet Explorer and Edge open with tip for Enterprise mode, thus not catching the link that was trying to open.

For enterprise site list it’s in basic a simple .XML file with entry inside it.

You can put the file inside a fileshare, locally into a desktop or on a website centrally.

The file format look like that;

That way it’s empty;

<site-list version="1">
  <created-by>
    <tool>EMIESiteListManager</tool>
    <version>12.0.0.0</version>
    <date-created>02/06/2023 18:34:29</date-created>
  </created-by>
</site-list>

Inside the file we can add site now;

<site-list version="1">
  <created-by>
    <tool>EMIESiteListManager</tool>
    <version>12.0.0.0</version>
    <date-created>02/06/2023 18:34:29</date-created>
  </created-by>

<site url="127.0.0.1">
    <compat-mode>IE11</compat-mode>
    <open-in>IE11</open-in>
  </site>
</site-list>

If you manage multiple site you can note;

<site-list version="1">
  <created-by>
    <tool>EMIESiteListManager</tool>
    <version>12.0.0.0</version>
    <date-created>02/06/2023 18:34:29</date-created>
  </created-by>
<!-- Dev website  -->
<site url="127.0.0.1">
    <compat-mode>IE11</compat-mode>
    <open-in>IE11</open-in>
  </site>
</site-list>

If your website need special rule for authentication to work with cookie, some command like that can be used;

<site-list version="1">
  <created-by>
    <tool>EMIESiteListManager</tool>
    <version>12.0.0.0</version>
    <date-created>02/06/2023 18:34:29</date-created>
  </created-by>
<!-- Authentification  -->
<shared-cookie domain=".localhost" name="AUTH" source-engine="Both"/>
<!-- Dev website  -->
<site url="127.0.0.1">
    <compat-mode>IE11</compat-mode>
    <open-in>IE11</open-in>
  </site>
</site-list>

The magic here is after that, if you need help to write the file Microsoft did a tool for that purpose;

Enterprise Mode Site List Manager (schema v.2)

After the file is created and deployed, be sure to check in edge://compat to see if the list is ok 🙂

Hi everyone

Today I wanted to share some small tips to debug Egde policies.

Not everyone know it, but you can list your GPO settings you push to the client !

It’s a really nice add-on to Edge, as it allow to see if your targetting in your GPO work or not, and if the settings you push is the desired’s one.

To display the windows you just have to enter in the browser bar; edge://policy

A windows like this one will appear;

Inside the windows you have the timestamps of the last time the policy was retrived.

If you need tod ebug IE Enterprise mode you can go to the edge://compat windows.

Like in that example we can see the .xml push by GPO was in error.

Next post I will talk how to debug the xml’s file 🙂 but with those tips atleast now we can spot where the error is if the policy dont work as intended.

Thanks everyone for the read !