Google Chrome Default Browser - AppVolumes 2.14

[patelshivam94]

Good Evening all,

We are running AppVolumes 2.14.2.9, UEM 9.3, & VMWare Horizon 7.4.0. How is everyone going about setting Chrome as the default browser? Which installer is being used to install Chrome within the AppStack, Enterprise Installer or Standard Installer?

Thanks, in advance, for all input.

[Ray_handels]

Because everyone gets Google Chrome in our environment we install it within the golden image.

We do use the business installer (i would suggest doing so, I believe standard installer installs in your profile which isn't captured within the appstack) to deliver Chrome to users.

Keep in mind that Google has quite an aggressive update mechanism. Not only does it have 2 update services, it also has 2 update tasks en I believe a reg key that triggers the updater. You could remove the entire Update folder after install.

Looking at how to set it as default. Problem is that Windows 10 (or at least Microsoft) thinks that users should be able to choose these applications themselves. AFAIK it is nearly impossible to do anything with those settings centralized. You might be able to find a solution for it on the internet but your guess is as good as mine .

[VDINinja311]

patelshivam94​

We run Google Chrome as the default browser in our non-persistent VDI environment. We run AV 2.14.2, UEM 9.2, and Horizon 7.3.2 currently. We install Google Chrome with the MSI Enterprise installer from Chrome Browser for Enterprise | Download & Support .We use the OEMDefaultAssociations.xml that we modify and insert into the Master Image when we build it. That XML tells Chrome to overtake https/http and htm/html associations. We have Google Chrome installed into a Core AppStack that 95% of our users get upon login.

You just modify a copy of the OEMDefaultAssociations.xml that lives in C:\Windows\System32 directory on your master image. Modify the necessary lines to make Google Chrome the default over Edge. The lines we modified for Google Chrome are as follows:

...

<Association Identifier=".htm" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />

<Association Identifier=".html" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />

...

<Association Identifier="http" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />

<Association Identifier="https" ProgId="ChromeHTML" ApplicationName="Google Chrome" />

During Google Chrome installation of the AppStack, we do also stop and disable the two Google Updater services that get installed. This prevents Google Chrome from updating on the linked clones.

Hopefully this helps

[Ray_handels]

Nice info vdininja.. Thanks. There are a few things I think we will be able to try as well.

There also is another option to disable Google update is you are not using statefull machines (because sucks in management ) and that is to use the ADMX template and use policies (either GPO's or UEM) to configure Google Chrome. This way you don;t need to tweak to much with scripts and stuff like that.

[VDINinja311]

We prefer the disabling of the two Google Update services so when we are provisioning in that AppStack it isn't attempting to auto update randomly during the provisioning. We already use the ADMX settings in UEM for Google Chrome for other things, but that wouldn't apply during provisioning of the AppStack