Just in the last day or two our IT department has rolled out a new intranet for the organization (public library system) and all of the Windows based installations of Chrome have defaulted to the intranet home page at startup. That's all well and good; however, I use portable chrome on a USB drive specifically to keep my data from getting all mixed up with the Windows instance of chrome, and now my personal portable instance of chrome is ALSO getting the "managed by your organization" limitations, specifically:
* startup page is now the intranet page (I prefer it to be my notes app/to do list/project app)
* startup page/home page areas in my settings are grayed out and I can't change it
A different start-up page is not the end of the world, but I'd rather not have my IT department have any hooks into my personal instance of chrome. I'm not up to no-good, I'm just uncomfortable with it.
How are the Windows admin settings affecting my self-contained version of chrome? Is there any way to change this?
Thanks.
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This is likely set in the registry within the HKLM hive and can not be changed by you. Chrome will read this setting no matter what by design of the publisher. That's my guess as I'm unfamiliar with this setting. If anyone else knows where it's stored or how to disable it, please chime in.
You can check what policies they have set in chrome://policy
I checked a bit and it's based on these registry keys:
Check which is set on your work PC. I'd wager it's the HKLM and not the HKCU.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thanks for the help! I was able to take a look and actually it is the HKCU. All the staff machines are logged into a default user, but I am able to use my Outlook 365 user/pass to login. I tried that, same deal, so I guess it's for every staff username.
The new tab/start homepage is not a big deal. Would you happen to know what else, if anything, can be switched in the HKEYs that might compromise my chrome set up? We don't have a big IT dept (public library system), and I know and trust the current staff to not really care about my personal data/use (beyond obvious, egregious issues), but I guess it's still disconcerting. I realize it's a work computer, so I take my chances.
Thanks again.
This is fixed in 74.0.3729.169 Stable and 75 Beta. The HKCU key will be backed up and restored for all users. Users running as admin can backup and restore HKLM as well.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
My workplace has suddenly dictated its own startup page and deleted all current startup pages for Chrome. Somehow, this has affected my chrome portable? Why is this? I thought that the app was portable and didn't use anything from the local machine. They have also set it up to where you can't change the startup pages. Can anyone help?
It's automatic if in HKCU. If it's in HKLM, you'd have to run as admin to temporarily remove it. If it is set as HKLM by your organization and you don't have admin rights, you can not adjust it by design because of the way your admin set it.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!