GCPW Auto Sign-in for Chrome/Drive and Default Browser Setting

[SirAlan]

Hi everyone,

We are using Google Credential Provider for Windows (GCPW) on our PCs.

 

The majority of these machines are currently domain-joined, although going forward, there is no requirement for them to be. Local profiles are created when users sign in via GCPW.

 

We want to ensure the following happens automatically when a user logs in using GCPW:

 

1. Automatic sign-in to Google Chrome.

2. Automatic sign-in to Google Drive for Desktop.

3. Google Chrome is set as the default browser.

 

We have Google Workspace for Education Standard.

 

Has anyone successfully configured these settings for users logging in via GCPW? 

 

Any advice on how to enforce this would be hugely appreciated!

Edited December 3, 2025 by SirAlan

[dhicks]

On 03/12/2025 at 10:16, SirAlan said:

We want to ensure the following happens automatically when a user logs in using GCPW:

1. Automatic sign-in to Google Chrome.

2. Automatic sign-in to Google Drive for Desktop.

3. Google Chrome is set as the default browser.

 

We were looking this a couple of years ago - relevant thread:

 

 

GCPW should now pass login cookies on to Google Chrome - check the version you are using, there was an issue a little while back that took a while to get fixed, again, relevant thread:

 

On first run, Google Drive for Desktop needs to go out to the browser to get authentication to connect to the user's Google Drive. There is a separate registry setting you can set to make sure Drive for Desktop opens up Chrome (which the user has already just logged in to) rather than the system-default browser (which Windows tends to keep setting back to Edge at any opportunity). The user doesn't need to log in again to connect up Drive for Desktop, they just need to approve further permissions for the Drive client. It just takes a few clicks, but is the kind of the thing the average user ignores / closes without reading. Therefore, if you read through the first thread I linked to, you should see a link to an application I wrote that forces the user through the setup-Google-Drive-client before the Windows desktop (Windows Explorer) loads. This also means you can have the Drive client load before Windows Explorer, so you can redirect the user's Desktop folder to a Google Drive folder. Users logging in via GCPW get local Windows profiles on that device, by default anything they save on the desktop doesn't get synced to Google Drive.

 

I should add that I haven't touched the above application for a couple of years, it is not extensively tested or guaranteed to work in any way. It is a fairly simple Go application, easy to compile yourself, so you can modify and tweak it if needed.

[TwistedHelixis]

Yes it should do those.

 

Last year there was a version of GCPW that borked auto signing into Chrome, but that was fixed 6 months ago (ish)

 

One thing I noticed is that starting with a fresh Windows device, not joined to the domain, and GCPW runs very well.

[dhicks]

39 minutes ago, TwistedHelixis said:

One thing I noticed is that starting with a fresh Windows device, not joined to the domain, and GCPW runs very well.

 

We've tended to re-install Windows, with setup (including installing GCPW) via unattend.xml, maybe some supplementry scripts, and Action1, I don't think we've tried just installing GCPW on an existing Windows machine.

 

Did you get a chance to test USB 2FA keys again with GCPW? I couldn't get our keys (Feitian) to be recognized, which I understood was simply a limitation of what access the Windows login mechanism gives GCPW to things like USB ports, but you reckoned you might have got USB Ubikeys working with GCPW at one point?

[TwistedHelixis]

Ill need to go into a school and log on, but I do seem to remember it working last time. Let me test it out next week and ill update this post.

[TwistedHelixis]

@dhicks

I just tried and got an error message when trying to log in with my fido key. I don't have a passkey setup, but the GUI opened for this, so I think passkeys would work.

 

The really odd thing is, the office lady said she logged into GCPW with the office fido key, but I cant get that working.

[dhicks]

53 minutes ago, TwistedHelixis said:

I just tried and got an error message when trying to log in with my fido key.

 

Right-oh, thanks for following up. We've just set up another test machine here, I'll maybe have another go here and see what happens.

[TwistedHelixis]

I just setup a new device and it let me use my fido key to log in.

 

After entering my password and picking to use my security key, it didn't display the normal 'enter your key to continue', the only option was to pick a different option, but I plugged the key in anyway, noticed it was flashing the LED, pressed the touch button and it logged me in.

 

So its not perfect, as it looks like its not going to work, but does anyway.

[dhicks]

4 hours ago, TwistedHelixis said:

So its not perfect, as it looks like its not going to work, but does anyway.

 

Hmm, interesting. I'll try and give that a go at some point and see what happens.

[TwistedHelixis]

I'm now wondering if after entering my password, rather than clicking 'try another way' and then picking the key as an option,  if I had just inserted my fido key after typing in my password, would it have worked anyway.