Browsium Ion and Catalyst (all versions)
Starting with Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft added the ability to “pin” sites by dragging and dropping the icon from the address bar onto the desktop or taskbar. Pinned sites can also be created via the ‘Tools’ menu. Though similar in appearance to traditional shortcuts, pinned sites launch Internet Explorer with all add-ons disabled (though they will appear as enabled in ‘Manage add-ons’). This occurs immediately after creating the pinned site, and every time the pinned site shortcut is opened.
Because both Catalyst and Ion rely on add-ons to work with Internet Explorer, neither product will work with pinned sites. Therefore Browsium recommends that IT admins disable Internet Explorer’s pinned sites functionality on all PCs running Ion or Catalyst. This article provides guidance to control this setting centrally using Group Policy.
The following screenshot shows a pinned site opened in Internet Explorer. The “home” icon has been moved to the top-left of the browser window and now uses the site’s icon (or the IE logo if the site doesn’t have its own icon).
Though this looks like a standard IE window, it has a number of special characteristics, including disabling all add-ons. Because both Ion and Catalyst rely on Internet Explorer add-ons to function, IT admins should disable pinned sites functionality on all PCs in the enterprise.
Pinned sites functionality can be centrally disabled via Group Policy. The steps are as follows:
Posted in: Catalyst Knowledge Base, Ion Knowledge Base,
