Google Chrome Force Install Extension on Server 2012 R2

[dhoward_westexetc]

Currently working on deploying Chrome via the MSI, and using group policy to deploy settings.

 

Among our settings is that we use the Chrome > Extensions > Force Install extensions to install the Impero extension for web filtering. It works perfectly on Windows 7/10 client, but if I do it on our Server 2012 R2 RDS server, it doesn't install the extension. All other policies work fine.

 

Server is configured with User Profile Disks

 

Anyone else had this and know a way to make it work?

 

Thanks!

[Dan_Impero]

Currently working on deploying Chrome via the MSI, and using group policy to deploy settings.

 

Among our settings is that we use the Chrome > Extensions > Force Install extensions to install the Impero extension for web filtering. It works perfectly on Windows 7/10 client, but if I do it on our Server 2012 R2 RDS server, it doesn't install the extension. All other policies work fine.

 

Server is configured with User Profile Disks

 

Anyone else had this and know a way to make it work?

 

Thanks!

 

Hi dhoward_westexetc,

 

If you'd like me to raise a support ticket on your behalf then please let me know - if you want to email your details to me directly at [email protected] I can do this for you.

 

Kind regards,

Daniel

[KibosJ]

This is because of the way RDS remaps the Appdata folder for users.

 

If you try and install an extension manually in chrome on an RDS connection you will probably get an error.

 

As far as I am aware this has been going on for a long time and there is still no fix from Google.

[dhoward_westexetc]

This is because of the way RDS remaps the Appdata folder for users.

 

If you try and install an extension manually in chrome on an RDS connection you will probably get an error.

 

As far as I am aware this has been going on for a long time and there is still no fix from Google.

 

 

Thanks @KibosJ. Thought it may have been to do with that.

 

Very interesting, especially as User profile disks have been around for a long time. I haven't been able to see anything myself that indicates that Google are aware of the issue.

[KibosJ]

Hi @dhoward_westexetc

 

Here's the chromium bug report:

 

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=413889&q=rds&colspec=ID%20Pri%20M%20Stars%20ReleaseBlock%20Component%20Status%20Owner%20Summary%20OS%20Modified

 

Seems there are some workarounds

Edited April 25, 2016 by KibosJ

[dhoward_westexetc]

Nice one, thanks. Couldn't find that on my search!

Good to know it's with them. Agree, it's a highly needed fix.

[KibosJ]

Agreed, it's bugged me for quite some time now, hopefully it is sorted before I push RDS to all staff this summer!

[dhoward_westexetc]

Agreed, it's bugged me for quite some time now, hopefully it is sorted before I push RDS to all staff this summer!

 

I implemented comment 43, which says about not redirecting local folders, but added the folder AppData\Local\Google to the profile. Seems to fix it in my single server environment, but cannot say if it works reliably in a farm deployment as I don't have a farm.

 

It will work for now until hopefully there's some traction on this with Google.

[KibosJ]

I'll have to have a play, we redirect chrome userdata to the Roaming AppData folder, so not sure if that will cause more issues.

[dhoward_westexetc]

You can exclude Roaming App Data from the User profile disk too, but I've left ours as default, which puts chrome data on AppData\Local\Google.