Chrome Startup Pages

[jamwatn]

Hi,

We have been using chrome on our win7 network for about six months.

In that time, the policies setting the home pages/tabs does not seem to work.

We use roaming profiles and the chrome cache/settings lives in local on profile creation making chrome think it's starting for the first time every time, but even before this when we had chrome roam it's settings and cache it would always first-run each time.

It also seems to ignore the 'set as default' policy too as it asks if you want to set it as default each time too.

 

Any ideas please?

[6Foot2]

You could deploy an icon that redirects to a specific page:

 

To start Chrome with Google as the start page put this in the shortcut target box:

 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" www.google.co.uk

 

I am running Windows 64 Bit so my target includes "C:\Program Files (x86)" in the path. If you are running Windows 32 Bit this part of the path would be "C:\Program Files"

[jamwatn]

OO I like that idea. I'll try that on Monday.

I wonder if Chrome will still over-write that to its first-run 'Google Sign In' page however?

[6Foot2]

OO I like that idea. I'll try that on Monday.

I wonder if Chrome will still over-write that to its first-run 'Google Sign In' page however?

 

Don't know. But, yeah, give it a try. What harm can it do?

 

[jamwatn]

Will do thanks

[jamwatn]

Pleased to say that it works perfectly. The only problem is that the link that is pinned on the Taskbar doesn't follow the shortcut that we have re-directed so I'm assuming that lives in the profile somewhere?

[6Foot2]

Pleased to say that it works perfectly. The only problem is that the link that is pinned on the Taskbar doesn't follow the shortcut that we have re-directed so I'm assuming that lives in the profile somewhere?

 

Our users have roaming profiles. When we want to reset a user's profile we delete their profile folder at the server. The next time they logon their profile gets re-built. This means that their frequently used and pinned icons are also deleted. Do you have similar?

[jamwatn]

It's similar but with ours, Chrome seems to re-appear always!

[6Foot2]

It's similar but with ours, Chrome seems to re-appear always!

 

Something in your profile template that copies the Chrome icon over when, maybe, it shouldn't?

[Arthur]

Any ideas please?

You will need to create a master_preferences file to configure the various preferences before Chrome's Group Policies take effect. This will prevent the desktop shortcut from appearing and set the browser as the default (among other things).

 

Here's an example master_preferences file...

 

{
  "homepage": "https://www.google.co.uk",
  "homepage_is_newtabpage": false,
  "browser": {
     "check_default_browser": false,
     "clear_lso_data_enabled": true,
     "pepper_flash_settings_enabled": true,
     "show_home_button": true,
     "window_placement": { "maximized": true }
  },
  "bookmark_bar": { 
     "show_on_all_tabs": true 
  },
  "session": {
     "restore_on_startup": 4,
     "restore_on_startup_migrated": true,
     "urls_to_restore_on_startup": [ "https://www.google.co.uk", "http://www.bbc.co.uk" ]
  },
  "autofill": {
     "enabled": false
  },
  "countryid_at_install": 18242,
  "distribution": {
     "create_all_shortcuts": false,
     "do_not_create_desktop_shortcut": true,
     "do_not_create_quick_launch_shortcut": true,
     "do_not_launch_chrome": true,
     "import_bookmarks": false,
     "import_history": false,
     "import_search_engine": false,
     "make_chrome_default": true,
     "make_chrome_default_for_user": true,
     "msi": true,
     "require_eula": false,
     "show_welcome_page": false,
     "skip_first_run_ui": true,
     "suppress_first_run_bubble": true,
     "suppress_first_run_default_browser_prompt": true,
     "system_level": true,
     "verbose_logging": true
  },
  "download": {
     "directory_upgrade": true,
     "extensions_to_open": "",
     "prompt_for_download": true
  },
  "enable_do_not_track": true,
  "first_run_tabs": [ "https://www.google.co.uk", "http://www.bbc.co.uk" ],
  "instant": {
     "confirm_dialog_shown": true,
     "enabled": true,
     "enabled_once": true,
     "enabled_time": "12983895238037000"
  },
  "intl": {
     "accept_languages": "en-GB,en-US,en"
  },
  "network_profile": {
     "last_warning_time": "1363797548",
     "warnings_left": 0
  },
  "spellcheck": {
     "dictionary": "en-GB",
     "use_spelling_service": true
  },
  "sync_promo": {
     "user_skipped": true
  }
}

[jamwatn]

I'll try and find out what our default profile is, I don't manage this personally.

You are correct about the master settings file. I tried it and it still wouldn't apply what I placed inside the settings file. It might have been my formatting however.

Am I right in thinking that if that does work, I'll need to deploy the master settings file to every computer in the school?

[Arthur]

I tried it and it still wouldn't apply what I placed inside the settings file. It might have been my formatting however.

It could be the formatting or it could be because Chrome will only pick up the settings in the master_preferences file if the user doesn't already have an existing Chrome profile.

 

To check the formatting copy-and-paste the text into JSONLint and it will tell you if it is a valid JSON file.

 

Am I right in thinking that if that does work, I'll need to deploy the master settings file to every computer in the school?

Yes, although that's quite easy using GPP.

[AJWhite1970]

According to various Chrome forums I should already be burning in hell for using this command line but I start Chrome using the following:

 

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --disable-gpu --disable-d3d11 --disable-logging --disable-ipv6 --user-data-dir="r:\Chrome\User Data" --disk-cache-dir="r:\Chrome\Cache" --homepage "http://website/aup.html/" -- "%1"

 

As I have chrome updates disabled and push out new versions through PDQ Deploy I don't have issues with profiles complaining about old versions of Chrome etc.

 

Been running this since September and thus far, no reported issues.

Andrew

[jamwatn]

Assuming your R: drive there is a remote drive, do you not see issues with performance and Chrome moaning about network drives?

[AJWhite1970]

Assuming your R: drive there is a remote drive, do you not see issues with performance and Chrome moaning about network drives?

 

Yes, drive R is the staff/student remote home drive and it runs just as fast as a local PC not on the network. And as far as I can remember, Chrome stopped complaining about using network drives in approx v35ish...?

 

Andrew

[Arthur]

According to various Chrome forums I should already be burning in hell for using this command line

Yep!

 

--disable-gpu --disable-d3d11

Why would you do this? Chrome is usually much faster when it uses the GPU to render things.

[AJWhite1970]

I was seeing worse performance with GPU enabled than disabled. TBH not revisited this since September but on the list to benchmark over the summer especially as we are about 6 versions newer since then!!

 

Fell into the not broken so don't fix it category...

[jamwatn]

We have version 42.xxxxx and it certainly moaned about having cache etc on a network share but now we set chrome to shove stuff in local which gets blatted anyway.