How to change homepage by Registry in Edge Browser

Question

I want to change the homepage in the Edge browser via Registry but it's encrypted and I see (Protected - It is a violation of Windows Policy to modify. See aka.ms/browserpolicy) in Registry. Please help me to edit homepage in Registry or find where it's a violation of Windows policy to modify. See aka.ms/browserpolicy

Answer 1

ProtectedHomepages value is not really encrypted, instead it is an obfuscated buffer which contains homepages strings and the cryptographic hash for these strings. Buffer is obfuscated using the random generated seed which is also stored as a part of the buffer. I have done some reverse engineering research and published the results here.

So, basically, reading and decrypting this value is easier than modifying due to the required crypto-hash. However, reading capability is the only required for anti-malware software. I don't know what reasons you have to modify this value, hopefully you are not writing a piece of malware...

Answer 2

If it is only the homepage in Edge you want to set then change the URL below to your preference and then save this as a .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppContainer\Storage\microsoft.microsoftedge_8wekyb3d8bbwe\MicrosoftEdge\Main]
"HomeButtonEnabled"=dword:00000001
"HomeButtonPage"="https://www.google.com/"