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).
Related articles.
Group Policy Central http://t.co/Y2cVZ0TP
Where on earth did you find this little gem?
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!
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.
Not sure why but I can’t make this work at all. The GPP does not write the reg entries at all. I tried changing the action to create and also update, but no difference. Any suggestions?
well John, you don’t really tell me much of your setup so there is not much for me to go on here. But in general my checklist would be something like this:
1. It’s a GPP setting under the user (not computer) and it writes to the HKCU hive? 2. Use “replace” 3. Trippe-check that the path is written correctly. For example: “Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\*.contoso.com” 4. Use “gpresult -r” on the client computer to check that the user gets the GPP 5. If the user gets the GPP, check the application log on the computer. If a GPP fails you will see it in the application log at the time the user logs in and it usually tells you why.
That’s my suggestions at the moment.
You nailed the problem – I was using a computer policy, not a user policy. As soon as a rebuilt it as a user policy, everything fell into place perfectly. Thanks for posting this, it was a huge timesaver!
You’re welcome, I’m glad I could help. 🙂
Excellent post. I was just trying to figure out the exact registry keys to modify when I found this page. Nice work !
For the same case.. My user wants to add site to their trusted site list.. Please help…
Mahfuj: I’m not sure what you mean. If you use GPP to configure the IE zones then the users are allowed to add sites to them. Do you want ot prevernt them from adding sites to the trusted site list? Or do you want to allow them to add sites to the trusted site list?
Yes.. I want my user will add sites to trusted site list….. But “Add this website to the zone” field and “Add” button is gray out.. for all users.
Yes.. I want to allow my users to add sites to trusted site list….. But “Add this website to the zone†field and “Add†button is gray out.. for all users.
This means you have the administrative template still configured for the user so it will prevent them from editing their zone list. You have to be sure that you ONLY configure IE site zones via Group Policy Preferences…
I agree with Alan, it is most likely another GPO that contains settings for the IE zones, either in computer or user settings.
Thanks… I’ve figureout the issue.. Site to zone assignments list should be Not Configured for both Computer and user configuration settings….
You have a typo in the third paragraph that starts with “Hoever it’s a little complicted. Typo: “As you can see below the zone is store at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains…” should be “As you can see below the zone is store at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains…” The “Windows” part of the path is missing 😉
@KJS thanks.. I have corrected…
What versions of IE does this method support?
I have not tested it… but I think will work with all versions.
I am really loathing the decision by MS to go down the GPP route without replacing existing functionality with something equally simple. With this Zone mapping and the amount of work with getting favourites working it is a nightmare trying to replace existing simple easily updated GPOs with GPPs, I am not looking forward to doing it for Office.
Helpful. Thanks
Worked perfectly; delivering the following record helped the annoying windows security prompts for executing VBS/HTA files off network shares: file://privateDomainName.FQDN 1 file://privateDomainName 1
Many thanks,
My spouse and I absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post’s to be exactly what I’m looking for. Would you offer guest writers to write content for you personally? I wouldn’t mind producing a post or elaborating on some of the subjects you write concerning here. Again, awesome weblog!
That brings us to quite possibly the most intriguing match-up to that point of the season when Oregon comes to Rice-Eccles. Alabama will try to rebound from their loss to the Sooners and rank fourth in the Sporting News college football preseason rankings. Ole Miss and Mississippi State moving the Egg Bowl away from Jackson, Miss.
What’s up, always i used to check web site posts here in the early hours in the morning, because i like to find out more and more.
Alan, great post. I’m having this issue my question is would this solution work for widows 7?
Yes it will
Very helpful posting, many thanks.
Has anyone had trouble getting this to work with Windows XP? It works well with all my Win& PC’s but is hit and miss on the XP.
Had a similar Issue, however a little different. This article may help you… http://www.grishbi.com/2015/03/unable-to-change-ie-zone-security-settings/
Excellent work Alan.
I know it is mentioned, but I would re-emphasize http or https as required.
As Per-Torben Sørensen suggested, use Replace. I’ve had issues with update instead of replace so I always use replace. It seems update doesn’t add something if it is missing, but replace does.
Remember rsop.msc is your friend. It doesn’t show the registry changes, but does show if an additional policy is applied that overrides the registry settings. With these specific settings, you can do a C:\>gpupdate /force, close and re-open the browser or re-run rsop.msc to see if the changes took place. All without logging out and back in, or rebooting.
Best, David
Much appreciated. Need to retain as much of the admin aspects for people doing programming while still giving them the tools needed for internal sites.
I am able to get the GP to work fine, however the site I am adding still doesn’t come up under the Intranet Zone as I have set. I am trying to add the internal IP of the site – 192.0.0.25. When I add this manually in IE, it works fine. When done through GP, it shows in IE under the Intranet zone, but doesn’t get treated like an intranet zone (File > properties, shows it as Internet). Is there a way to use the IP address instead of the domain name?
We needed to add a list of no less than 10 sites to the trusted list. Rather than doing it individually as you have shown, I exported the “Domains” key to a shared drive and then created a logon script that copies it to the local machine and then imports it to the registry. Now, whenever we need to add more trusted sites, I can just update the reg key in the shared location.
Question on using Wild Cards in the URL. I just found your post yesterday and am very excited about testing out using preferences in place of policies for our list of trusted sites.
I have several URLs that I am using wildcards in. If I enter the wildcard in the key path (Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\*.contoso.com) I end up with this listed in trusted sites in IE: http://*.contoso.com .
Will this function properly for all domains that add a prefix to .contoso.com? Also, is there anyway to use a wildcard to it would work with either http or https sites? We have several of those.
Excellent article…..working for me. One thing I want to mention that If you want to add just e.g., http://google.com it is working fine. but if you want to add http://google.com/xyz then you should add google.com/xyz after \Domains\ e.g. Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\google.com/xyz
Thanks for posting.
Is this applicable for HKLM registry location via GPP?
Since we need to implement for machine level.
Brilliant, thanks for this blog, works like a treat. thanks for your effort putting this up 5 years later and people are still coming across these things 🙂
Site sponsor, featured post.
Internet Explorer Maintenance is dead. We all have our regrets, missed chances, and memories. But we have to move on. Depending on your love for power, you have two options. You can take the totalitarian route (known as Administrative Templates) or the benevolent method (known as Group Policy Preferences). Here are the two ways that you can configure Internet Explorer Trusted Sites with Group Policy.
Site to Zone Mapping allows you to configure trusted sites with Group Policy Administrative Templates. This setting can be found at:
When possible, use the computer configuration option as it will not impact user logons. When you enable the setting, you will be prompted for a value name (the website) and a value (the zone list). Here are the possible values and the zone that they correspond to:
The screenshot above shows one trusted site and one restricted site. There is a potential downside to managing trusted sites with Administrative Templates. You will not be able to edit the trusted sites list within Internet Explorer. If you have more than four items listed, you won’t be able to see the entire list in the IE Trusted Sites window. If you view the site properties (Alt – File – Properties), you can check a specific site’s zone though. Remember this trick as it will help you when troubleshooting! You can view the entire list in the Registry by navigating to HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains. If you are an administrator, you can edit/add/remote items from this list for testing. Just be sure to run a GPUpdate /force to undo your changes.
Bonus Points : Leave a comment below explaining why a GPUpdate /force is required to undo your changes. Super Bonus Points if you answer in a haiku.
You would think that Group Policy Preferences Internet Settings could set trusted sites. Unfortunately, that setting is greyed out.
You can still configure IE site mappings with Group Policy Registry Preferences though.* The benefit of this is that your users can edit the zone lists and view all of the added sites. To set this up, create a new user side registry preference. This trick will not work under computer configuration. Enter in the following details:
Here is an example showing DeployHappiness being set as a trusted site with registry preferences:
If your site isn’t being placed in the Trusted Sites list, add it manually and then navigate to the registry location above. Ensure that the manual addition exactly matches your registry preference. You will also need to ensure that no Administrative Template Site to Zone settings are applied. If they are, they will wipe out your preference settings. Remember that Policies always win!
You can search your domain for site to zone settings by using this Group Policy Search script. Alan Burchill taught me this trick.
To see additional ways to configure site to zone mappings, read this very in depth example guide.
I hope to replace our Site to Zone list to allow our users to enter their own in but I am not sure how to enter our entries that don’t specify a specific protocal such as http or https. So can someone tell me how I would create an entry for this:
*://*.sharepoint.com
and what about something like this – how would this be entered?
https://192.192.192.192 .:9443 (example only)
As for your first question, this info should help: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/326140-add-trusted-sites-via-gpo-but-still-allow-users-to-add-trusted-sites?page=1#entry-2849140
As for the second question, I don’t know of a way to handle ports. In reference to your example, a link like that would be entered like this: *://192.192.192.192
This is excellent – I have used the GP preferences to add trused sites without locking users out of the setting if they need to add a site. But what about this – a program in the startup group – it is a shortcut to a file on a server – a member server of the local domain – domain.local. I want to prevent this program from prompting end-users to run it, and make sure it will run without prompting. Can this be accomplished with a GP preference as well? If so, do I need to add it to trusted sites, or to the local intranet zone or local machine zone? It would seem to be a local intranet or local machine zone I am working with here. I am not sure how to add it – whether I just need to add the local domain, or the computer name FQDN, or the path to the shared folder and the file. thanks!
This sounds like two different problems: 1. How do I get an app to run without prompting? 2. How do I make it run on startup with group policy?
The latter is easy, create it as a scheduled task that runs on startup. The former depends on what type of script it is. If it’s a vbscript then run it with cscript /b “name.vbs”.
With the old approach we had a file under trusted sites to allow the file to run. It has stopped working under 2012. Could I use this with a file? The old setting was:
file:\\Domain.com\netlogon\AsmallExe.exe
See this article on what you can configure with trusted sites: http://evilgpo.blogspot.com/2016/03/internet-explorer-site-to-zone.html
Just the ticket. Thanks a lot.
I have double-checked that the site to zone assignment policy is not configured, both under user and computer settings. We used group policy preferences because we do not want to lock down the trusted sites – only to push out the sites we want to be trusted. But for some absurd reason, the trusted sites are locked down and greyed out half the time – one day I will look and the sites are not dimmed out and will let me add or remove them. Then the next day they will be greyed out again. It is amazingly ridiculous. I am the only admin; no one else knows how to mess with the settings even if they had the admin credentials. So I have no clue why it keeps reverting back to the wrong settings. I thing our active directory needs to have dcdiag run on it a few times. Any ideas will be sincerely appreciated.
If it is locked down, it is a GP policy that is doing it (the site to zone assignment one) or a registry key that is enabling that site to zone assignment.
When you see one that does it, run a GPResult /h report.htm /f and look through that report.htm. You will see any GP settings that would block it then.
A reply to my own post – the problem was corrupted group policy on the Windows 7 computers – some of the computers were working fine. The ones that were not working, we had to delete the corrupt policy (it was preventing the updated policy settings from being applied). It was in the path C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Group Policy\History\{policy GUID}. After deleting the corrupt policy and rebooting, it fixed the problem!
Thanks for the update Sam!
You’re welcome! I am still having some issues with the trusted sites being greyed out in IE, even though I made certain not to use site to zone assignment in the policy, and only used GP preferences to add registry items for the sites in the trusted zone. Do you know what registry key I need to be looking for, that might be causing this issue?
Many thanks! Sam S.
Are you making sure that you’re applying it under HKCU, and not under HKLM? If you configure it under HKCU, users will still have the ability to add their own entries. But if you configure it under HKLM, the option to add entries will be greyed out.
Yes, I definitely deployed the preferences under the Users GP Preferences and not computer policy/preferences. However, there are some policy settings that I set in both computer and user settings in the GPO. None of these are site to zone assignments though. These settings are for all the security settings within the zones, like, download signed activeX controls – enable, download unsigned activeX controls, Prompt… etc.. – these settings are set in the computer policy and the user policy which is probably what is wrong. I should probably just disable the computer policies in the GPO. I will try that and see if it helps. Why are all these settings available in the computer side and the user side both? Is there a reason someone would set these settings in one policy over the other?
A computer side policy is available for every user that logs in already. These are generally faster to apply and are my preferred way to configure something. However, times like this are when a user side policy would be the best route for you. Remove the computer side settings and try John’s suggestions. Let us know what you find out.
Sam, another thing you can try is to access the GPO from a Windows 7 workstation running IE 9 (and make sure that there are no current Internet Explorer policies being applied to the workstation; put it in an OU that is blocking inheritance if you have to), then drill down to “User Config\Policies\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance\Security\Security Zones and Content Ratings”. Double-click on “Security Zones and Content Ratings”, then choose “Import…” under “Security Zones and Privacy’, click “Continue” when prompted, then click “Modify Settings, then “Trusted Sites”, then the “Sites” button. You can then make whatever changes you want (add a site, remove a site, remove the check from the https box, etc). This should give you the freedom you’re looking for :).
i`ve add multiple Sites to the Site to Zone assigment list (Trusted Sites). After a new logon, i`ve check my settings, start IE11, visit the site i`ve add to the list, press Alt – File – Properties and check the Zone. Some of the sites are correct, shown in the trusted site zone, some of them not, they are in an unkown zone (mixed). I want to check the registry path Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains but this key is empty, for HKLM and HKCU. What`s wrong?
Thanks and Regards Patrick
Are you deploying the trusted sites with Policies or registry preferences?
> comment below explaining why GPUpdate /force is required to undo your changes.
For Group Policy to apply efficiently changes trigger it.
Exceptions apply. GPUPDate force is one. Security too.
Less obtusely said: “Group Policy will normally only reprocess client side extensions that have at least one policy element that changed. The exceptions to this are Security Option settings which reapply every ~16 hours on most machines and every 5 minutes on Domain Controllers. The other exceptions are when you run a gpupdate /force, and any CSEs you configure to auto-reapply. You can view this decision tree by enabling UserEnv logging as described in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc775423%28v=ws.10%29.aspx ” … But not as haiku.
Hi, Is it possible to select the users you want that this GPO applies? It is because I need to add a web to trusted sites, but only to two users. Any idea?
You would need to configure these settings under user configuration. Then change the scope of the GPO from authenticated users to a group containing those two users.
With regards to deploying trusted sites via GPO, while allowing users to add their own entries, see if this post helps: http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/post/2849140
I’m finding that when I deploy Trusted Sites using GPP and the registry, users aren’t able to add entries themselves (it allows them to add to the list, but the entries don’t stick and are gone as soon as you reopen the dialog). Any ideas?
You sir, have a good last name! 🙂
Do you have any delete preferences configured to that registry key? If you manually browse to that key, do you see what the user added?
In this post we will see the steps on how to add sites to Internet Explorer restricted zone.
To configure Internet Explorer security zones there are multiple ways to do it, in this post we will configure a group policy for the users and use Site to Zone assignment list policy setting to add the websites or URL to the restricted site zone.
This policy setting allows you to manage a list of sites that you want to associate with a particular security zone. Internet Explorer has 4 security zones, numbered 1-4, and these are used by this policy setting to associate sites to zones.
The zone numbers have associated security settings that apply to all of the sites in the zone. Using the Site to Zone assignment list policy setting we will see how to add sites to the Internet Explorer restricted zone.
Please note that Site to Zone Assignment List policy setting is available for both Computer Configuration and User Configuration.
Launch the Group Policy Management Tool, right click on the domain and create a new group policy. Right the policy and click Edit .
In the Group Policy Management Editor navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Control Panel > Security Page.
If you want to apply the group policy for the computers then navigate to – Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explore r > Internet Control Panel > Security Page.
On the right hand side, right click the policy setting Site to Zone Assignment List and click Edit .
Click Enabled first and then under the Options click Show . You need to enter the zone assignments. As stated earlier in this post Internet Explorer has 4 security zones and the zone numbers have associated security settings that apply to all of the sites in the zone.
We will be adding a URL to the Restricted Sites Zone . So enter the value name as the site URL that to Restricted Sites zone and enter the value as 4 . Click OK and close the Group Policy Management Editor.
We will be applying the group policy to a group that consists of users. In the Security Filtering section, click Add and select the group .
Login to the client computer and launch the Internet Explorer . Click on Tools > Internet Options > Security Tab > Restricted Sites > Click Sites .
Notice that the URL is added to the Restricted Sites zone and user cannot remove it from the list.
Join our newsletter to stay updated and receive all the top articles published on the site get the latest articles delivered straight to your inbox..
Good article Prajwal .Detailed Explanation on how to add sites to internet explorer restricted zone .Keep it up .I seen your videos also in YouTube its really great.Thanks for sharing this info.
Hi Prajwal, Thank you for your article. Is there any way to block sites in all browsers.
Block all sites ?. Why would you do that ?.
I think you misunderstood the user’s question. The user was asking if there was a way to block any particular website in ALL browsers. Not just Internet Explorer.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Recent articles.
Managing and configuring Internet Explorer can be complicated. This is especially true when users meddle with the numerous settings it houses. Users may even unknowingly enable the execution of malicious codes. This highlights the importance of securing Internet Explorer.
In this blog, we’ll talk about restricting users from changing security settings, setting trusted sites, preventing them from changing security zone policies, adding or deleting sites from security zones, and removing the Security tab altogether to ensure that users have a secure environment when using their browser.
Restricting users from changing security settings
A security zone is a list of websites at the same security level. These zones can be thought of as invisible boundaries that prevent certain web-based applications from performing unauthorized actions. These zones easily provide the appropriate level of security for the various types of web content that users are likely to encounter. Usually, sites are added or removed from a zone depending on the functionality available to users on that particular site.
To set trusted sites via GPO
Figure 1. Assigning sites to the Trusted Sites zone.
Figure 2. Enabling the Site to Zone Assignment List policy.
By enabling this policy setting, you can manage a list of sites that you want to associate with a particular security zone. See Figure 2.
Restricting users from changing security zone policies
This prevents users from changing the security zone settings set by the administrator. Once enabled, this policy disables the Custom Level button and the security-level slider on the Security tab in the Internet Options dialog box. See Figure 3.
Restricting users from adding/deleting sites from security zones
This disables the site management settings for security zones, and prevents users from changing site management settings for security zones established by the administrator. Users won’t be able to add or remove websites from the Trusted Sites and Restricted Sites zones or alter settings for the Local Intranet zone. See Figure 3.
Figure 3. Enabling Security Zones: Do not allow users to change policies and Security Zones: Do not allow users to add/delete sites .
Removing the Security tab
The Security tab in Internet Explorer’s options controls access to websites by applying security settings to various download and browsing options, including defining security levels for respective security zones. By removing this tab, users will no longer be able to see or change the settings established by the administrator.
Figure 4. Enabling the Disable the Security page policy. Enabling this policy prevents users from seeing and changing settings for security zones such as scripting, downloads, and user authentication. See Figure 4.
There’s no denying the importance of securing Internet Explorer for any enterprise. By setting security levels, restricting users from changing security zone policies, preventing them from adding or deleting sites from security zones, and removing the Security tab, users will not be able to change any security settings in Microsoft Internet Explorer that have been established by the administrator. This helps you gain more control over Internet Explorer’s settings in your environment.
Cancel reply.
Is there a way to enable Site to Zone assignment list and still let the user enter their own sites to the trusted list?
Hi Joe. You need to disable the below setting to achieve the requirement.
Note: Even if the policy is not configured, users can add their own sites. Only when the policy is enabled, users can’t add their own sites to trusted sites.
Thanks a lot.
Español 4 min read Read
Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
Q&A for work
Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
This seems like it shouldn't be hard, but I haven't had any luck with either guessing or searching. I'll admit I'm no Windows guru, so forgive me if the answer should be obvious.
I'm trying to get Windows to stop giving me security warnings when I open files or links from a DFS share. I already have a GPO in place which does this for a couple of other network shares:
Here, I've added host1.mydomain.org and host2.mydomain.org to zone 1 (intranet), and the network shares from these hosts are correctly treated as trusted intranet sites.
However, I now want to add \\mydomain.org\shares to the intranet zone as well. Adding it just like that appears not to work (and on my client machine it appears in the list as file://*.mydomain.org ). Other things I've tried include *.mydomain.org and explicitly listing the hosts where the DFS shares originate.
"Turn on automatic detection of the intranet" is also enabled, although I've never been clear on how that actually works.
Servers and DCs are 2008 R2 and clients are (mostly) 7 Pro.
Edit: The next day, it appears that the listing of mydomain.org is in fact having the desired effect. I hadn't logged out and back in during testing; I just did a gpupdate /force and confirmed that the GPO settings appeared in the Internet Options dialog. Is this a bug or just another arcane Windows thing that I don't quite understand?
When refreshing group policy it is usually necessary to log out and for some settings a restart (sometimes 2!) is necessary. I wouldn't call it arcane but it won't be obvious if you haven't documentation regarding group policy processing.
The shell (explorer.exe) is caching the policy. Simply restart the shell and many settings will start to be applied. There is no need to log out/back in for many scenarios.
Exiting the shell:
Restarting shell:
Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged windows group-policy dfs ..
an endpoint admin's journal
November 6, 2023
Zoom Desktop Client – Download older build versions from Zoom
October 31, 2023
Uninstall Teams chat app using remediation script and a configuration profile in Intune
October 30, 2023
October 25, 2023
October 23, 2023
5 Quick Mac OS Terminal commands to make a Mac user life easier
Powershell : Find disabled users and computers in AD
Deploy a set of trusted sites overriding users’ ability to add trusted sites themselves. To acheive this, an Intune configuration profile Trusted site zone assignment can be deployed to devices/users group as required.
Login to Intune Portal and navigate to: Devices > Windows > Configuration Profiles .
Hit the Create button and Select New policy
From the Create a profile menu, select Windows 10 and later for Platform , Templates for Profile type. Select Administrative templates and click Create .
Give the profile desired name and click Next .
In Configurations settings, select Computer Configuration and search for keyword “ Site to Zone “, Site to Zone Assignment List setting will be listed under search results. Go ahead click on it to Select it.
Once selected, a Site to Zone Assignment List page will appear on right side explaining different zones and values required for these zone for setup. Since this profile is being used for trusted sites, we will use the Value “2” . Go ahead and select Enabled button and start entering the trusted sites as required. please ensure to set each value to “2” . See example below:
Once done adding the list of sites, click OK to close it and Hit Next on Configuration settings page.
Add Scope tags if needed.
Under Assignments , Click Add groups to target the policy deployment to specific group of devices/users. You can also select Add all users / All all devices .
Hit Next . Then Hit Review + Save button to save.
Tags: Intune Windows
thanks! I was just looking for this exact solution!
The definitive guide to Site to Zone assignment syntax can be found at: http://evilgpo.blogspot.com/2016/03/internet-explorer-site-to-zone.html
The typical problems are:
See the article for more details.
— More Examples Below —
Www.microsoft.com, https://intranet, https://www.mycorp.com:8080, http://www.mycorp.com/index.html, *://www.microsoft.com, *.mycorp.com, 192.168.1.15, 192.168.1-255.*, http://microsoft.com, invalid entries, *hosts.mycorp.com, www.mycorp.*, www.*.mycorp.com, http*://www.mycorp.com, 192.168.*.1, *.*.mycorp.com.
Remark: In earlier versions of windows, if you provided a wildcard with a second level domain with only two letters ( *.co.uk e.g.), this was an invalid entry. This was to prevent the whole SLD of some countrys to be added. At the time of this writing, this type of entry has become valid in Windows 10.
ericlaw talks about security, the web, and software in general
Last updated: 19 June 2024
As a part of every page load, browsers have to make dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of decisions — should a particular API be available? Should a resource load be permitted? Should script be allowed to run? Should video be allowed to start playing automatically? Should cookies or credentials be sent on network requests? The list is long.
In many cases, decisions are governed by two inputs: a user setting, and the URL of the page for which the decision is being made.
In the old Internet Explorer web platform, each of these decisions was called an URLAction , and the ProcessUrlAction(url, action,…) API allowed the browser or another web client to query its security manager for guidance on how to behave.
To simplify the configuration for the user or their administrator, the legacy platform classified sites into five 1 different Security Zones :
Users could use the Internet Control Panel to assign specific sites to Zones and to configure the permission results for each zone. When making a decision, the browser would first map the execution context (site) to a Zone, then consult the setting for that URLAction for that Zone to decide what to do.
Reasonable defaults like “ Automatically satisfy authentication challenges from my Intranet ” meant that most users never needed to change any settings away from their defaults.
In corporate or other managed environments, administrators can use Group Policy to assign specific sites to Zones (via “Site to Zone Assignment List” policy) and specify the settings for URLActions on a per-zone basis. This allowed Microsoft IT, for instance, to configure the browser with rules like “ Treat https://mail.microsoft.com as a part of my Intranet and allow popups and file downloads without warning messages. “
Beyond manual administrative or user assignment of sites to Zones, the platform used additional heuristics that could assign sites to the Local Intranet Zone . In particular, the browser would assign dotless hostnames (e.g. https://payroll ) to the Intranet Zone, and if a Proxy Configuration script was used, any sites configured to bypass the proxy would be mapped to the Intranet Zone.
Applications hosting Web Browser Controls, by default, inherit the Windows Zone configuration settings, meaning that changes made for Internet Explorer are inherited by other applications. In relatively rare cases, the host application might supply its own Security Manager and override URL Policy decisions for embedded Web Browser Control instances.
While powerful and convenient, Zones are simultaneously problematic bug farms :
The fact that proxy configuration scripts can push sites into the Intranet zone proves especially challenging, because:
The legacy Edge browser (aka Spartan, Edge 18 and below) inherited the Zone architecture from its Internet Explorer predecessor with a few simplifying changes:
Chromium goes further and favors making decisions based on explicitly-configured site lists and/or command-line arguments.
Nevertheless, in the interest of expediency, Chromium today uses Windows’ Security Zones by default in two places:
For the first one, if you’ve configured the setting Launching applications and unsafe files to Disable in your Internet Control Panel’s Security tab, Chromium will block file downloads with a note: Couldn't download - Blocked .
Similarly, because Chrome uses the Windows Attachment Execute Services API to write a Mark-of-the-Web on downloaded files , the Launching applications and unsafe files setting (aka URLACTION_SHELL_EXECUTE_HIGHRISK ) for the download’s originating Zone controls whether the MoTW is written. If this setting is set to Enable (as it is for LMZ and Intranet), no MoTW is written to the file’s Zone.Identifier alternate data stream. If the Zone’s URLAction value is set to Prompt (as it is for Trusted Sites and Internet zones), the Security Zone identifier is written to the ZoneId property in the Zone.Identifier file.
By setting a policy, Administrators can optionally configure Edge or configure Chrome to skip SmartScreen/SafeBrowsing reputation checks for File Downloads that original from the Intranet/Trusted Zone.
For the second use of Zones, Chromium will process URLACTION_CREDENTIALS_USE to decide whether Windows Integrated Authentication is used automatically, or the user should instead see a manual authentication prompt. By setting the AuthServerAllowList policy , an admin may prevent Zone Mapping from being used to decide whether credentials should be sent. Aside: the manual authentication prompt is really a bit of a mistake– the browser should instead just show a prompt: “Would you like to [Send Credentials] or [Stay Anonymous]” dialog box, rather than forcing the user to retype credentials that Windows already has.
Any respect for Zones (or network addresses 2 ) in Chromium remains controversial— the Chrome team has launched and abandoned plans to remove all support a few times, but ultimately given up under the weight of enterprise compat concerns. The arguments for complete removal include:
A sort of compromise was reached: By configuring an explicit site list policy for Windows Authentication, an administrator disables the browser’s URLACTION_CREDENTIALS_USE check, so Zones Policy is not consulted. A similar option is not presently available for Downloads.
Beyond the two usages of Zones inherited from upstream (Downloads and Auth), the new Chromium-based Edge browser adds three more:
Update: This is very much a corner case, but I’ll mention it anyway. On downlevel operating systems (Windows 7/8/8.1), logging into the browser for sync makes use of a Windows dialog box that contains a Web Browser Control (based on MSHTML) that loads the login page. If you adjust your Windows Security Zones settings to block JavaScript from running in the Internet Zone, you will find that you’re unable to log into the new browser .
While it’s somewhat liberating that we’ve moved away from the bug farm of Security Zones, it also gives us one less tool to make things convenient or compatible for our users and IT admins.
We’ve already heard from some customers that they’d like to have a different security and privacy posture for sites on their “Intranet”, with behaviors like:
At present, only AutoSelectCertificateForUrls , AutoOpenFileTypes, AutoLaunchProtocolsFromOrigins . manual cookie controls, and mixed content nags support policy-pushed site lists, but their list syntax doesn’t have any concept of “the entire Intranet” (all dotless hosts, hosts that bypass proxy).
You’ll notice that each of these has potential security impact (e.g. an XSS on a privileged “Intranet” page becomes more dangerous; unqualified hostnames can result in name collisions ), but having the ability to scope some powerful features to only “Intranet” sites might also improve security by reducing attack surface.
As browser designers, we must weigh the enterprise impact of every change we make, and being able to say “ This won’t apply to your intranet if you don’t want it to ” would be very liberating. Unfortunately, building such an escape hatch is also the recipe for accumulating technical debt and permitting the corporate intranets to “rust” to the point that they barely resemble the modern public web.
Throughout Chromium, many features are designed respect an individual policy-pushed list of sites to control their behavior. If you were forward-thinking enough to structure your intranet such that your hostnames are of the form:
…Congratulations, you’ve lucked into a best practice. You can configure each desired policy with a *.contoso-intranet.com entry and your entire Intranet will be opted in.
Unfortunately, while wildcards are supported, there’s presently no way to express the concept of “any dotless hostname.”
Why is that unfortunate? For over twenty years, Internet Explorer and legacy Edge mapped domain names like https://payroll , https://timecard , and https://sharepoint/ to the Intranet Zone by default. As a result, many smaller companies have benefitted from this simple heuristic that requires no configuration changes by the user or the IT department.
Opportunity: Maybe such a DOTLESS_HOSTS token should exist in the Chromium policy syntax. This seems unlikely to happen. Edge has been on Chromium for over two years now, and there’s no active plan to introduce such a feature.
There does not exist an exact mapping between these two systems, which exist for similar reasons but implemented using very different mechanisms.
In general, users should expect to be able to use the new Edge without configuring anything; many of the URLActions that were exposed by IE/Spartan have no logical equivalent in modern browsers.
If the new Edge browser does not behave in the desired way for some customer scenario, then we must examine the details of what isn’t working as desired to determine whether there exists a setting (e.g. a Group Policy-pushed SiteList) that provides the desired experience.
1 Technically, it was possible for an administrator to create “Custom Security Zones” (with increasing ZoneIds starting at #5), but such a configuration has not been officially supported for at least fifteen years, and it’s been a periodic source of never-will-be-fixed bugs.
2 Beyond those explicit uses of Windows’ Zone Manager, various components in Chromium have special handling for localhost/loopback addresses, and some have special recognition of RFC1918 private IP Address ranges, e.g. SafeBrowsing handling, navigation restrictions, and Network Quality Estimation. As of 2022, Chrome did a big refactor to allow determination of whether or not the target site’s IP address is in the public IP Address space or the private IP address space (e.g. inherently Intranet) as a part of the Private Network Access spec . This check should now be basically free (it’s getting used on every resource load) and it may make sense to start using it in a lot of places to approximate the “ This target is not on the public Internet ” check. Within Edge, the EMIE List is another mechanism by which sites’ hostnames may result in different handling.
Security Zones were introduced with Internet Explorer 4, released back in 1997:
The UI has only changed a little bit since that time, with most of the changes happening in IE5. There were only tiny tweaks in IE6, 7, and 8.
Published by ericlaw.
Impatient optimist. Dad. Author/speaker. Created Fiddler & SlickRun. PM @ Microsoft 2001-2012, and 2018-, working on Office, IE, and Edge. Now a GPM for Microsoft Defender. My words are my own, I do not speak for any other entity. View more posts
In IE it is possible to see which zone is active on a page you’re currently viewing (alt to show menu bar, -> file -> properties).
Is it possible to see this in the new Edge?
No, although as noted, the Zone isn’t used for very much. To see the Zone, you’d have to reload the same page in IE (or use a command line utility or similar).
Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
Q&A for work
Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
If I want to add a domain to local intranet sites in my entire network of +2000 computers and clients, does using GPO to do it potentially overwrite any existing defined sites on the clients?
We have lots of users who we've defined these local intranet sites manually on each client. And each client is usually a little different from the other one. But now I need to add a site that will apply for the entire network. I really want to avoid doing this manually if possible.
The specific GPO-settings I am asking about is located here:
User Configuration/Policies/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page
The object being Site to Zone Assignment List
Creating that GPO will overwrite users settings and prevent them modifying settings
This may help you https://blog.thesysadmins.co.uk/group-policy-internet-explorer-security-zones.html
Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged group-policy windows-domain ..
Hi fellow spiceheads
Can someone confirm, that it doesn’t matter if you add an entry with or without port number to the s2z list?
For example, I have a list with two entries named like following
After some quick googling I found out that some are saying that while the list is being processed, it just strippes out the port. Which I now assume, I could just go with the first entry in the list and delete the second one (with the port number).
Am I correct?
Background info: I have a weird problem with some PDF reports published directly from an ERP software, showing the PDF in the IE. The ERP publishes the PDF to some special path with varying between 5 port numbers. Should I now add all 5 URLs with each port to the s2z list or just one entry without any port in it?
The answer in this article may help ==> https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e10f3dc3-595b-4b56-ac09-1eb756d041a3/site-to-zone-gpo?forum=winserverGP
Topic | Replies | Views | Activity | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Windows , | 1 | 334 | February 29, 2024 | |
Windows , | 3 | 90 | July 9, 2019 | |
Windows , | 6 | 379 | November 14, 2016 | |
Windows , | 2 | 142 | May 20, 2016 | |
Windows , | 8 | 220 | July 26, 2013 |
A reddit dedicated to the profession of Computer System Administration.
In our environment we have some sites in the GPO "Site to Zone assignment list" , it locked down the trusted site setting. Is there any way to unlock the trusted site settings ? Thank you.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
In managed environments, administrators can use Group Policy to assign specific sites to Zones (via "Site to Zone Assignment List" policy) and specify the settings for URLActions on a per-zone basis. Beyond manual administrative or user assignment of sites to Zones, other heuristics could assign sites to the Local Intranet Zone.
Open Group Policy Management Console. Navigate to the desired GPO or create a new one. Expand User Configuration or Computer Configuration and go to Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Registry. Right-click and select New -> Registry Item. Configure the Registry Item to delete the specified entries under the ZoneMap registry key.
In the main pane, double-click the Sites to Zone Assignment List setting. Enable the Group Policy setting by selecting the Enabled option in the top pane. Click the Show ... Add Site to Local Intranet Zone Group Policy. Posted on October 17, 2019 by Sander Berkouwer in Active Directory, Entra ID, Security.
Step 2. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer > Internet Control Panel > Security Page and double click on the “Site to Zone Assignment List†and check the “Enable†option then click on the “Show..†button. Step 3.
If you want to lock it down and add as needed, GPO will work just fine, just go to Win Components/Internet Explorer/Internet Control Panel/Security Page - Site to Zone Assignment - enable the policy, click List and add the sites as needed, a value of 1 is Intranet a value of 2 would be Trusted. Yes. I want to lock it down so I will do it in ...
Click on the Security Zones and Content Ratings folder. Double-click on the Site to Zone Assignment List policy. Click the Enabled radio button. Click the Show button. In the Value name field, enter the server name in the following format: "file://servername" (replace "servername" with the actual name of the server).
In the main pane, double-click the Sites to Zone Assignment List setting. Enable the Group Policy setting by selecting the Enabled option in the top pane. Click the Show ... Add Site to Local Intranet Zone Group Policy. Posted on October 15, 2019 by Sander Berkouwer in Active Directory, Entra ID, Security.
1 - Intranet Zone; 2 - Trusted Sites Zone; 3 - Internet Zone; 4 - Restricted Sites Zone; Once the zone assignment has been entered, click "OK". This will once again show the "Show Contents" window and the new entry should be present. Click "OK" and "OK" again to get back to the Group Policy Management Console. The new ...
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 ...
The above requirement can be achieved in three ways. Option 1: Computer Configuration ""> Administrative Tools ""> Windows Components ""> Internet Explorer ""> Internet Control Panel ""> Security Page and then zone assignment list. This will disable the add/remove buttons.
When possible, use the computer configuration option as it will not impact user logons. When you enable the setting, you will be prompted for a value name (the website) and a value (the zone list). Here are the possible values and the zone that they correspond to: 1 = Intranet/Local Zone. 2 = Trusted Sites. 3 = Internet/Public Zone.
I created a new user account, and when logged on for the first time, it too experienced the same issue with sites not showing in IE, even though the GPO was applied. I found in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap , there is a key called IEHarden (remembered the name back from my 2003 days with a ...
Re: Site to Zone Assignment List - Powershell. # Step 2: Navigate to the Site to Zone Assignment List # This step is manual and requires navigating through the Group Policy Management Editor interface. # Step 3: Enable the Policy and Specify Zone Assignments # Define the list of URLs and their corresponding zone assignments.
Please note that Site to Zone Assignment List policy setting is available for both Computer Configuration and User Configuration.. How To Add Sites to Internet Explorer Restricted Zone. Launch the Group Policy Management Tool, right click on the domain and create a new group policy. Right the policy and click Edit.. In the Group Policy Management Editor navigate to User Configuration ...
Figure 1. Assigning sites to the Trusted Sites zone. Figure 2. Enabling the Site to Zone Assignment List policy. By enabling this policy setting, you can manage a list of sites that you want to associate with a particular security zone. See Figure 2. Restricting users from changing security zone policies. Open the Group Policy Management Editor.
Policies Administrative Templates Windows Components Internet Explorer Internet Control Panel Security Page Site to Zone Assignment List Here, I've added host1.mydomain.org and host2.mydomain.org to zone 1 (intranet), and the network shares from these hosts are correctly treated as trusted intranet sites.
Deploy a set of trusted sites overriding users' ability to add trusted sites themselves. To acheive this, an Intune configuration profile Trusted site zone assignment can be deployed to devices/users group as required. Login to Intune Portal and navigate to: Devices > Windows > Configuration Profiles. Hit the Create button and Select New ...
Manage Google Chrome using Group Policy, SCCM or your own management utility. On-Demand Demo. PolicyPak Least Privilege Manager v. Traditional Whitelisting (such as Applocker) ... Why doesn't Site to Zone list assignment work with the syntax I provided? Posted on December 18, 2020 by Ali Hassan.
In corporate or other managed environments, administrators can use Group Policy to assign specific sites to Zones (via "Site to Zone Assignment List" policy) and specify the settings for URLActions on a per-zone basis. ... Beyond manual administrative or user assignment of sites to Zones, the platform used additional heuristics that could ...
Control panel > internet options > trusted sites. rod-it (Rod-IT) September 8, 2022, 2:39pm 3. GPO. Computer Configuration — Administrative Tools — Windows Components — Internet Explorer — Internet Control Panel — Security Page and then double click to the "Site to zone assignment list". bryancomanici (bcomanici) September 13 ...
The object being Site to Zone Assignment List. group-policy; windows-domain; Share. Improve this question. ... Distribute IE Trusted Sites Security Zone Sites and Settings using GPO. 3. ... Why won't Group Policy File Redirection settings apply? 0. Microsoft Sync Center not working properly after UNC path referencing was changed via gpo. 4 ...
For example, I have a list with two entries named like following. https://something.domain.local. https://something.domain.local:123. After some quick googling I found out that some are saying that while the list is being processed, it just strippes out the port. Which I now assume, I could just go with the first entry in the list and delete ...
Find out who does your GPO changes and ask them to add the site to the Site to Zone assignment list GPO. Yes, You can use group policy "Registry" preference to add the sites instead, the then your users still get the sites added but they can add the sites that they need. Thanks everyone, added those sites via registry.