Thanks to Microsoft, with the removal of the Internet Explorer Maintenance section in Group Policy since IE9, once again they’ve decided to make things more complicated and the end users have lost yet another important administrative tool required for many environments.
That being said, the only way to set and enforce proxy settings in Internet Explorer now requires hacking the registry, which I’m seeing as a disturbingly all too common trend when setting up an RDS server. Here are the keys to the kingdom:
User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry Right-click Registry > New > Registry-Item
These are required entries…
Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings Value name: MigrateProxy Value type: REG_DWORD Value data: 1 Base: Decimal Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings Value name: ProxyEnable Value type: REG_DWORD Value data: 1 Base: Decimal Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings Value name: ProxyHttp1.1 Value type: REG_DWORD Value data: 0 Base: Decimal
Set you proxy server’s address and port number here…
Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings Value name: ProxyServer Value type: REG_SZ Value data: YourProxyServerAddress:Port
Set any sites that you wish to bypass the proxy server here. If you want to use single sign-on for your Exchange server, you would need to enter that here or if you want to enable access to all local intranet sites, enter <local>…
Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings Value name: ProxyOverride Value type: REG_SZ Value data: YourExchangeServersFQDN;<local>
And most importantly, to disable changes to the Proxy Settings on the Connections tab in Internet Options, add this key…
Action: Update Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER Key Path: Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel Value name: Proxy Value type: REG_DWORD Value data: 1 Base: Decimal