SCCM Change Default Browser: Setting Edge During OSD

Microsoft Edge is the default browser Windows 10 pushes for, but plenty of organisations still have legacy line-of-business web applications that only work properly in Internet Explorer 11. Here’s how to make IE11 the default during your SCCM OSD task sequence instead of leaving it as Edge. Assumption: this guide assumes MDT is integrated with your SCCM task sequence, and that your OS installation step exposes a variable such as %OSDisk%.

Step 1 — Export Your Desired File Associations

On a reference Windows 10 machine, set every file association exactly as you want it for deployed machines (including making IE11 the default for HTTP/HTTPS), then export those associations:

dism /online /export-defaultappassociations:c:\AppAssoc.xml

Copy the resulting AppAssoc.xml into your MDT scripts folder, then redistribute your MDT package in SCCM so the file reaches your distribution points.

Step 2 — Apply It During the Task Sequence

Add a Run Command Line step to your task sequence with the following command:

cmd.exe /c Dism.exe /Image:%OSDisk% /Import-DefaultAppAssociations:%DEPLOYROOT%\Scripts\AppAssoc.xml

When the task sequence reaches this step, it imports your exported associations into the offline image, and the deployed machine will boot with Internet Explorer 11 set as the default browser instead of Edge.

Major Update: Setting IE11 as Default No Longer Makes Sense (Updated for 2026)

This guide’s underlying goal — deployed machines booting with legacy line-of-business web apps working correctly — is still a completely valid thing to want. But the specific mechanism here, importing default app associations so Internet Explorer 11 handles HTTP/HTTPS, stopped being effective a while ago: a February 2023 Microsoft Edge update permanently disabled the standalone IE11 application on every Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel edition, redirecting iexplore.exe straight into Edge regardless of what the default-app association says. Only Windows 10 LTSC editions still run IE11 as a real, launchable browser — and Windows 11 never shipped it at all. The current supported path for legacy IE-dependent intranet apps is Microsoft Edge’s IE mode, which Microsoft has committed to supporting through at least 2029. Rather than trying to make IE11 the default browser, deploy one of Edge’s two documented IE-mode routing policies instead: an Enterprise Mode Site List (an XML list of specific URLs that automatically load in IE mode) or the simpler “Send all intranet sites to Internet Explorer Mode” policy, which routes anything in the intranet zone into IE mode with no site list needed. Either can be pushed via Group Policy or Intune alongside your existing OSD task sequence, and unlike a default-app-association trick, it actually works on current Windows 10 and Windows 11 builds.

Resources

• Microsoft
• OSD