How to configuring IE Site Zone mapping using group policy without locking out the user
If you saw my tweet or Darren Mar-Elia blog post you may be glad to know that the legacy Internet Explorer Maintenance section of group policy has now been removed in Windows 8. Unfortunately this means that you can now longer natively configured the IE Site to Zone mapping using native group policy setting without still allowing the user to customise the URL list. So below I will show you how you can still use Group Policy to configure the IE Zone via group policy while still allowing the user the ability to add additional sites.
Put simply we are going to setup the IE Zone registry keys manually using Group Policy Preferences…
However this is a little complicated as the URL that is in the Site to Zone mapping is actually stored as the name of the key. Finally the protocol is the registry value with a number that assigns it to the corresponding zone. In the example we use we will first look at the currently site that the users has setup in the trusted site list (www.bing.com). As you can see below the zone is store at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains then the domain is stored as a key "Bing.com" then "www". Within the "www" key the protocol (http and/or https) is the value name with the value representing what zone it should be a member.
Note: We are just using bing.com as an example as you would never add at search engine as a trusted site.
Now we will add the additional site www.google.com.au also to the trusted sites list using group policy.
Step 1. Edit a Group Policy that is targeted to the users that you want the IE Zones applied.
Step 2. Create a new Group Policy Preferences Registry Extension then select the "HKEY_CURRENT_USERS" Hive and then type "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\google.com.au\www" in the Key path. Then enter the Value name of "HTTP" and selected the Value Type as "REG_DWORD" and set the value data as "00000002".
And you’re Done…
TIP: For your reference the values and their corresponding Zones are listed below in the table.
|
Value |
Zone Name |
|
00000000 |
My Computer |
|
00000001 |
Local Intranet |
|
00000002 |
Trusted Site |
|
00000003 |
Internet |
|
00000004 |
Restricted |
As you can see below the IE zone will push out to your users and it will be added to the trusted zone list, while still allowing them to add and remove other zones from the list.
TIP: As always the native group policy settings will take precedence over Group Policy Preferences therefore if you have the "Site to Zone Assignment List" setting configured as well this will override (not merge) the above settings (See image below).
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Hi Alan,
Where on earth did you find this little gem?
Eric
I worked this one out on my own a few years back, Should have written a blog / guide back then! I’d be a millionnaire!!
But still – this is a great way to allow the users to add their own trusts, of on site to fix a broken site without returning to GPO Editor just for a single user!
Nice one.
[...] sites list. If you want to do it through Group Policy check out Alan Burchill’s article on IE Site Zone mapping but in my experiences only a couple of people have needed sites with Java and I add them on a [...]
I wasn’t able to get this to work. I tried it on both User and Computer settings. There was no sub folder under ‘hotmail.com’. The domain I’m trying to remove.
I’m unable to get this to work. Even the group policy results test shows it is successful, but it never shows up in the IE Internet settings. I’ve added a REG entry to also “uncheck” the require https: and that doesn’t show up either. I’ve test on both WinXP with IE8 and Win7 with IE9. Same results. I’ve looked at the registry and see nothing added. Plus, there are no errors in the event log.
Strange behavior.
I just troubleshooted with the same problem that it was not working with no error message to troubleshoot anywhere.
SOLUTION: I fired up regedit and navigated to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\” There I saw the site I wanted to add as a sub-key to “ZoneMap” and not as a subkey to “Domains” as it is supposed to be. The “Domains” subkey was empty. I deleted the site from “ZoneMap” and then did a gpupdate. When I then refreshed regedit the site was created no the correct location and everything was working.
Thanks for the info, but this isn’t my experience at all.
I’ve checked the registry for this same error and see nothing. I’ve even searched the entire registry for the domain name, and it finds nothing…
I’ve got a computer policy that is applied to the OU where the computer lives. All items in the policy are updating successfully, except for the registry entries. I’ve run the group policy results and see no errors. I’ve even created the policy by using the registry wizard and importing the items from my local registry. When I check the local registry on my test machines, I see nothing change. If I add the entries via IE, then they show up in the correct places. I’m stumped why this isn’t working…
Tough one. I often had typos in the GP preferences mess things up for me in the past, also the correct amount of \ signs in the key path is important. Personally I have never used it in computer policy, but I’ve always used user policy, perhaps that is worth a try? Also I always use “Replace” and not “update” in the GP Preference.
What do you mean by, “the correct amount of signs in the key path”? What is a sign?
I had the same thought about user policy yesterday and tried that as well. No luck. I haven’t tried the “Replace” option. I’ll test that next.
A bit clumsy explained, sorry about that. But I meant where you put the (slash) \ in the path. “Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\*.contoso.com” is the correct path, but if you write “\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\*.contoso.com” or “Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\*.contoso.com\” then it will fail.