This had caused quite a storm of controversy because a lot of groups feel it should be explicitly turned on by the user instead of being chosen for them automatically. This is why it was disabled in IE 11 and in Microsoft Edge. However, if you want to turn on Do Not Track in IE 11 or Edge, here’s how to do it.

It’s worth noting that the Do Not Track request doesn’t have to be honored by the website you are visiting. It’s simply a request by your browser, which may or may not be followed by the website.

Enable Do Not Track in IE 11

First, open Internet Explorer 11 and then press the ALT key on your keyboard to get the file menu. Click on Tools and Internet Options. You can also click on the gear icon at the far right.

Click on Advanced and then scroll down to the Security section and check the Always send Do Not Track header box. In IE 11, it’s called Send Do Not Track requests to sites you visit in IE.

That’s about it. In Internet Explorer 11 (and first introduced in Internet Explorer 9), you can also enable Tracking Protection Lists for even more tracking protection. To do this, click on Tools – Tracking Protection.

You can either create your own personalized list and add sites that you do not want to track you or you can click on Get a Tracking Protection List online and download ones that have been created and updated by third-parties. Once you download a TPL, click on it and then click Enable.

Those are two ways that Internet Explorer 11 enables tracking protection. By default, Do Not Track and tracking protection are disabled. You now know how to enable or disable either one.

Enable Do Not Track in Microsoft Edge

For Microsoft Edge, click on the three horizontal dots at the top right and then click on Settings at the very bottom.

Next, click on View advanced settings, again, all the way at the bottom.

Finally, scroll down to the Privacy and Services section and toggle the Send Do Not Track requests option.

Now all HTTP and HTTPS requests will include Do Not Track. In addition, if you want more security and privacy, it might be a good idea to simply use the InPrivate browsing feature of IE 11 and Microsoft Edge. This is the same as using Incognito mode in Google Chrome. Enjoy!

The post Enable Do Not Track and Tracking Protection in IE 11 and Edge first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

Some admins go a little overboard with restrictions and forcing people to search using only Bing is a prime example. In this article, I’ll show you how to modify some settings in the registry so that you can use Google as the default search engine instead of Bing.

If the registry editor is disabled on your computer also, make sure to check out my previous post on how to re-enable the registry editor. It’s worth noting that the registry keys we will be altering aren’t critical to the system and therefore if you mess something up, nothing bad should happen to your computer.

However, just in case, make sure to read my post on backing up and restoring the registry first. The procedure is a bit technical, but if you follow along slowly, it’s not too hard. I tested this on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 and it worked on all three operating systems.

Edit SearchScopes for IE in Registry

In IE, each search engine you add to the browser is called a search scope in the registry. First, before we get into the registry we have to create a new GUID that we will use as a key. Sounds scary, but just follow the instructions below.

Step 1: Open PowerShell by clicking on Start and typing powershell.

At the prompt, just copy and paste the following command:

[Guid]::NewGuid()

This will generate a long number with letters and dashes like shown below. Select the GUID and then press CTRL + C to copy it to the clipboard.

Now we have to convert this to uppercase because the registry is finicky about the case when creating keys. The easiest way to do this is to open Word, paste the text, select it and then choose UPPERCASE.

Step 2: Now let’s open up the registry editor by clicking on Start and typing in regedit. Now navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchScopes

If you click on SearchScopes, you’ll see a few keys on the right hand side. The main one we are interested in is DefaultScope. Double-click on that and paste in the new scope ID that we just created.

Note that you have to add an opening curly brace and a closing curly brace around the GUID that we generated.

Click OK and the value should get updated. Now that we configured which search scope is the default one, we actually have to go create the new search scope.

Step 3: Right-click on the SearchScopes key in the left hand navigation pane and choose New – Key.

Again, paste the value of the new GUID as the name of the key. Again, make sure to add the curly bracket to the front and end of the GUID. The registry keys should look like the below image now:

Step 4: Now for the fun part. We have to create a couple of new keys in the right pane for the new search scope. So first, select the new search scope we created and you’ll see there is only one key called Default.

We have to create a total of five new keys. To create a new key, just right-click in any white area in the right-pane and choose New and then pick String Value for the first key.

You want to give your new key a name of DisplayName and then press Enter. Then double-click on the new key and you can enter the value information. Type in Google in the value data box and click OK.

Now let’s add the rest in the same way. Below I will list out the key name (in bold), the type you have to choose (in italics) and the value you have to enter.

FaviconURL - String Value - http://www.google.com/favicon.ico

ShowSearchSuggestions - DWORD (32-bit) Value - 1

SuggestionsURL - String Value - http://clients5.google.com/complete/search?q={searchTerms}&client=ie8&mw={ie:maxWidth}&sh={ie:sectionHeight}&rh={ie:rowHeight}&inputencoding={inputEncoding}&outputencoding={outputEncoding}

URL - String Value - http://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}

After you have finished, the final entries should look like the image below:

Once everything is set in the registry, go ahead and open up Internet Explorer. You should not have to restart your computer for this to work. When IE opens, you might see a message at the bottom saying an unknown program wants to change your search provider. Go ahead and click Change.

Now when you type something into the address bar, it should give you search suggestions and should search using Google when you press Enter.

If something didn’t work properly, make sure to check all the keys properly and that the GUID is the same for DefaultScope and for the name of the key under SearchScopes. Also, make sure the GUID has the opening curly and closing curly brackets in both of those instances.

Hopefully, this will help you get access to Google search in IE even if your system is locked down. If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

The post Change the Default Search Engine in IE via Registry first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

Note that turning on private browsing in the browser only prevents the browser from storing your history and prevents websites from storing cookies. It does not make you anonymous on the web or prevent websites from tracking you or knowing who you are while online.

If you’re interested in more steps you can take to truly secure your browsing, then check out my previous post on clearing your search and browsing history.

Also, read to the end because there is a pretty big difference between IE 11 and Edge when it comes to how you can be more productive with private browsing mode.

InPrivate Browsing in IE 11

It’s really easy to turn on private mode in Internet Explorer 11, which is also included in Windows 10, in case you didn’t know. Simply click on the gear icon located at the top right of the window.

Then click on Safety and then click on InPrivate Browsing. As you can see from the screen shot below, you can also just press CTRL + SHIFT + P on your keyboard, which is way faster.

Either way, a new IE window will pop up and you’ll see the InPrivate indicator to the left of the address bar.

You’ll also get a little message indicating what IE 11 will not store in private browsing sessions. This includes cookies, temp files, search history, etc. Also, toolbars and extensions are disabled too since those can sometimes track or record your history also.

InPrivate Browsing in Microsoft Edge

For Edge users, it’s one click less to get into InPrivate browsing mode. At the top right, go ahead and click on the new options icon that has the three dots. That button seems to change to a new icon in each version of Windows!

Then just click on New InPrivate window and you’re good to go. As with IE 11, you can also use the CTRL + SHIFT + P shortcut.

In Edge, the InPrivate indicator is at the very top of the browser window as opposed to being next to the address bar like in IE 11.

If you find yourself browsing in private mode a lot, then you might want to read my post on enabling private mode by default when opening your web browser.

Also, check out my posts on using private mode in Google Chrome or Opera and using private mode in Firefox.

Edge vs IE 11 Pin to Taskbar

In addition to enabling private mode by default, like I mentioned above, you can also take an IE 11 InPrivate session and pin it to your taskbar.

To illustrate, open IE 11 and then open a new window in InPrivate mode. Now visit whatever page you want to have loaded whenever you open this InPrivate window. Instead of having to create your own custom shortcut to open an InPrivate session, just take the tab and drag it down to your taskbar.

What’s nice is that it will even use the fav icon from the site in your taskbar. In my example, I went to Facebook while in private mode and then dragged its tab to my taskbar.

Now when I click on that item in my taskbar, I instantly get put into private mode and it will load up that specific site. Unfortunately, this feature is not yet available in Microsoft Edge. If you try to drag a tab down to the taskbar, nothing happens.

InPrivate mode works exactly the same in both IE 11 and Edge, but Edge is the default browser in Windows 10. If you find the pinning to the taskbar option convenient, you can use IE 11 for that purpose. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!

The post Enable Private Browsing in IE 11 and Microsoft Edge first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

By default, IE will open the source code for a webpage in another IE window, which is fine for most people. If you are a developer or coder, you might want to use a different text editor or code editor to view the source code.

Depending on what version of IE you have installed, the method differs. From IE 8 to 10, it’s really easy and you can change the default source code viewer within IE itself.

In IE 11, you have to edit a registry key in order to make the change. It’s nothing major, but if you don’t like messing around with the registry, it’s annoying.

Change View Source Editor IE 8 to 10

It’s really easy to change the editor in these versions of IE because Microsoft built the option into the browser itself. You have to open Developer Tools to get to the option, which is really easy.

You can either press F12 on your keyboard or click on Tools and then click on Developer Tools.

Another IE window will pop up and here you want to click on File, then Customize Internet Explorer View Source and then choose from the options.

You can pick Notepad or you can click Other if you have a different code editor you would like to use. When you click Other, just browse to the location of the program file (EXE) for your editor.

Change View Source Editor IE 11

In IE 11, you have to edit the registry in order to change the editor because they have removed the option from the developer tools section now.

Before you modify the registry, make sure you read my guide on making a backup of the registry in case something goes wrong.

Now, open the registry editor by clicking on start and typing in regedit. Then, navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Make sure you are under the CURRENT_USER key and not LOCAL_MACHINE because it won’t work if you edit the keys in the latter location. Several online tutorials mention the latter, but it’s incorrect.

Right-click on the Internet Explorer key and click on New and then Key.

Name the new key View Source Editor and then press Enter. Now right-click on the new View Source Editor key and again choose New and then Key.

This key will be created under View Source Editor and you should name it Editor Name. Your registry keys should look like the image below.

In the right pane, double-click on the Default key that has no value set. In the Value data box, go ahead and put in the path to the EXE file for your desired code editor. Make sure to put the entire path in quotes as shown below.

Click OK and that’s it. You can now open IE and do a View Source and it should open in your desired code editor. You do not need to restart your computer or log off, the changes take effect immediately.

The only thing I haven’t been able to figure out yet is how to change the source code editor for Microsoft Edge, the new browser that is included with Windows 10. Once I am able to solve that issue, I’ll update this post with the solution. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!

The post Change View Source Code Editor in IE 8 thru 11 first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

Kiosk mode is used on public computers where administrators do not want the public to be able to change any of the settings, etc. It’s also really useful if you simply want to maximize the viewing area when browsing the Internet. Here’s an example of what IE looks like in normal, full screen, and kiosk modes:

Normal IE Mode

IE Full Screen Mode

IE Kiosk Mode

As you can see in the image above, Kiosk Mode takes up the entire screen and doesn’t even show the title bar at the very top with the min, max and close buttons. In Kiosk Mode, there is actually no way to minimize the IE window unless you close it completely.

It’s also very hard to navigate in full screen and kiosk modes because there is no address bar or anything else. In kiosk mode, you can’t even close the window normally, but either have to use a keyboard shortcut or bring up the taskbar using the Windows key on the keyboard. Let’s talk about how you can enable each of these modes.

Enable IE Full Screen Mode

Note that you can only enable full screen mode for IE in the Pro, Ultimate, and Enterprise versions of Windows 7 and 8. This is because you need access to Group Policy editor and that is not available in the Standard or Home editions of Windows. Also note that full screen mode require IE 7 or higher.

First, open Group Policy by clicking on Start and typing in gpedit.msc. Click on the first result at the top.

Once you open the editor, navigate to the following location:

Computer Configuration – Administrative Templates – Windows Components – Internet Explorer

On the right hand side, scroll down until you see Enforce full-screen mode and then double-click on the item. By default, it is set to Not Configured.

Click on the Enabled radio button and then click OK. You will also notice the Help section gives you a detailed description of how the setting will affect IE. Scroll down to the next section to learn how to navigate around IE using only keyboard shortcuts.

Enable IE Kiosk Mode

As mentioned earlier, kiosk mode will remove even the title bar at the very top of the screen so that the only thing on the entire screen is the currently loaded webpage.

In order to open IE in kiosk mode, you have to pass the executable file an extra parameter. You can either edit the original shortcut for IE or you can create a separate shortcut for opening IE in kiosk mode. I prefer the latter method so that you can easily choose normal or kiosk mode without having to keep editing the shortcut.

You can create the kiosk mode shortcut by right clicking anywhere on the desktop and choosing New – Shortcut.

In the location box, copy and paste the following line exactly as shown, including the quotes. Note that the -k part is outside of the quotes and that is how you want it to be.

“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE” –k

Click Next and type in “Internet Explorer Kiosk” or whatever you like to distinguish the link from the normal Internet Explorer icon on your desktop. Click Finish to create the shortcut.

By default, when you click on the link, IE will load up with the default home page. The fun part is now trying to figure out how to get around without using the back or forward buttons, the address bar or anything else.

Thankfully, you can get an entire list of Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate.  The basic commands you’ll need to know are:

Alt + Home – Go to your home page

Backspace – Go back one page (previous page)

Alt + Right Arrow – Go forward one page (next page)

CTRL + O – Open a new website or page (type in a website URL)

CTRL + W – Close the browser window

Even though it takes a little time getting accustomed to, browsing the Internet in full screen or kiosk mode in IE is actually pretty nice. There are no distractions and it effectively uses all of your screen real estate.

Kiosk Mode in Windows 8

If you are running Windows 8.1, there is another way to enable kiosk mode so that it is the only application the user is allowed to run. The user cannot go to the Start screen and can’t close the application at all. They cannot access the Charms bar or anything else. Using the two methods mentioned above, a user could still access other programs, settings, explorer, etc by simply pressing the Windows key on the keyboard.

This special mode in Windows 8 is called Assigned Access and can be used with any Windows modern app. This means you can’t use it with any desktop app. Luckily, there is a modern version of IE along with a desktop version of IE in Windows 8.1.

In order to use this super restrictive kiosk mode, you first have to create a new local account on the computer. To do this, open the charms bar and click on Settings.

Now click on the Change PC Settings link at the bottom of the charms bar.

In the left hand menu, click on Accounts and then click on Other accounts.

Click the Add an account button to start adding a new local account. By default, Windows will try to get you to create a Microsoft account, which we don’t want to do.

Click Sign in without a Microsoft account at the bottom and then click Local Account on the next page that pops up.

Finally, give your new account a name and a password. Click Next and then Finish.

Now that you have added the new local account, go back to the Start screen and log off the current account. Click on the account name and then click Sign out.

Log into the new local account you created and let it setup the profile. You have to do this otherwise the next steps won’t work. Also, if you want to assign a non built-in Windows app to the account, open the Windows Store app and download the app so that it is installed for that user. In our case, we are just going to use the built-in IE modern app.

Once you have logged in and the Start screen appears, go ahead and log out. Log back in using the original administrative account you started with. Again, open Change PC Settings and click on Other accounts. This time click on Set up an account for assigned access.

Now all you have to do is choose the local account you created and choose the app that you want assigned to that account. 

When you click Choose an app, you’ll see the list only contains modern apps and no desktop apps. I have chosen Internet Explorer as shown below.

That’s it! Now just log out of your account and log into the local account. You’ll see the app loads instantly and there is absolutely nothing else you can access on the system. This truly locks down the PC to one particular app. In order to log off the restricted account, you need to press the Windows key five times.

So those are all the different modes for Internet Explorer that you can use in Windows 7 and Windows 8. If you have any questions, post a comment. Enjoy!

The post How to Open Internet Explorer in Full Screen or Kiosk Mode first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

So for those poor souls still using older versions of IE, here’s a quick list of steps you can take to try and fix the underlying problem. The cause of this error can be any number of things, so you may have to try a few different methods before the problem is fixed. If you click on the link to see the data the error report contains, you may see something like this:

Error sign
AppName: iexplore.exe AppVer. 7.0.5730.11 ModName: unknown
ModVer: 0.0.0.0 Offset: 61eb77e0

So what can you do if you get this error? Try each one of the following steps and see if the problem goes away.

Method 1

Open IE, go to Tools, Internet Options or click on the Settings gear icon at the top right and then clear out the temporary Internet files. Under Browsing History, click the Delete button and then check Temporary Internet files and website files. In case you downloaded an executable file that is causing the problem, this will remove it.

Method 2

In some versions of IE, script debugging can be the cause for this issue. You can try disabling script debugging by going to Internet Options again, clicking on the Advanced tab and then checking the Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer) and Disable Script Debugging (Other) boxes.

Method 3

Run anti-spyware and anti-virus software on the computer. Download MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Spybot and run each to remove any malware. Both program have free versions and that’s all you need. Also, download CCleaner and HiJackThis and run both applications. Remove unwanted entries that you see when you run HiJackThis (you’ll have to read the docs to know what to remove).

Method 4

Go to Start, Run and then type in MSCONFIG. Click on the Startup tab and uncheck all items and then re-start the computer. This disables all startup programs from running. If you still get the error, go ahead and turn them back on one by one and see at which problem the problem comes back. This is called performing a clean boot.

Method 5

Disable Smarts Tags in Internet Explorer by going to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab, and then clearing the Enable Smart Tags check box.

Method 6

Install the latest updates from Microsoft Update web site. If you started receiving this error AFTER installing the latest updates, you will have to perform a System Restore to the point before you installed the updates. You can access the System Restore feature by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories, and then System Tools.

Method 7

Use System File Checker to scan for changes or modifications to Windows protected files. If any files were overwritten or deleted, etc, SFC will automatically retrieve the correct version of the file and replace it. You can run SFC by going to Start, and then Run, typing in CMD and then typing sfc /scannow in the command window.

Method 8

Re-register Internet Explorer DLL files. Click on Start, then Run, type in CMD and then type the following lines and press Enter after each one:

regsvr32 softpub.dll
regsvr32 wintrust.dll
regsvr32 initpki.dll
regsvr32 dssenh.dll
regsvr32 rsaenh.dll
regsvr32 gpkcsp.dll
regsvr32 sccbase.dll
regsvr32 slbcsp.dll
regsvr32 cryptdlg.dll

Method 9

Disable all third party add-ons to Internet Explorer by going to Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Advanced tab and then un-checking the “Enable third party browser extensions” check box under the Browsing section. You will have to scroll down a couple of lines.

You can also start IE with no add-ons by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools and clicking on Internet Explorer (No Add Ons).

Method 10

Sometimes a compatibility issue causes the problem with the graphics card. To check and see, go to Internet Options, Advanced and check the Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering box under Accelerated Graphics.

Method 11

One final option you can try is to reset Internet Explorer. Again, go to the Advanced tap in IE Options and at the bottom you’ll see the Reset button.

Also make sure to check the Delete personal settings box when you get the pop up dialog to confirm the reset.

Hopefully if you’ve been getting this error, one of these methods mentioned above will fix the problem. If you have questions about how to perform a step, please post a comment and I will try to help you out! Enjoy!

The post How to Fix Internet Explorer has Encountered a Problem and Needs to Close first appeared on Online Tech Tips.

Certain websites require the use of cookies in order to work properly, so if they are disabled for any reason, you might get not be able to use the site. If you’re getting an error message that cookies are not enabled on your computer, here’s how to re-enable cookies in Internet Explorer:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+

Choose “Internet Options” from the Tools menu in IE. In IE 10 and 11, you have click on the little gear icon at the top right to see Internet Options.

Next, click on the Privacy tab and then click the “Default” button (or manually slide the bar down to Medium) under Settings.

This setting will allow first-party cookies, but will block third-party cookies. First-party cookies means that the cookies put on to your computer are from the web page you are currently viewing. Third-party cookies are cookies left by a domain other than the one you are currently viewing. For example, if you go to yahoo.com and a cookie from weloveads.com is put on to your computer, that would be a third-party cookie.

You can also choose to accept third-party cookies also, but this is generally not recommended unless you must for a particular web site to work. To enable third-party cookies also, go to Tools, Internet Options and to the Privacy tab again.

This time click on the Advanced button and you can check the box “Override automatic cookie handling” and choose Accept for third-party cookies.

Delete Cookies in IE

If you want to remove all the cookies from your computer, go to Tools, Internet Options and on the General tab underneath Browsing History, click on Delete.

In the next dialog, check the Cookies and website data box and click OK.

There’s not much else to cookies other than that. With the default settings, cookies aren’t any major security concern you have to worry about. Normally, if you want to protect yourself on the web when browsing, you have to disable Java and scripts like JavaScript. Enjoy!

The post How to Enable Cookies in Internet Explorer first appeared on Online Tech Tips.