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I work in IT at a school and we recently updated our database software, however the web access that the teachers use to do registration does not work too well with Internet Explorer 7 and we're thinking about switching to chrome (mostly due to me hating IE in general) but the problem we have is that users are unable to migrate their bookmarks over from IE due to account restrictions, is there any way to get this working?

A bit of info about the system if it could be helpful;
Almost all the client PCs are running Win XP SP2.
My colleagues machines are running Windows 7,
I use OS X Snow Leopard
and most of out servers are running windows server 2003 (with the exception of 2 one on 2000 server and another on 2008 R2).
The Active Directory Controller is running Windows Server 2003

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  • Unrelated, but are roaming profiles/folder redirection used at all in your network? Chrome does not work correctly with redirection/roaming of profiles.
    – Zoredache
    Jan 12, 2011 at 23:08
  • We do have roaming profiles on our network yes, I was unaware of this causing problems as we have only done tests using a virtual environment so far with some test accounts (ie.. generic teacher account or generic pupil) and not come accross this.
    – Alan Parrish
    Jan 12, 2011 at 23:27

3 Answers 3

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Coordinate with the rest of the IT department to cure this part: "users are unable to migrate their bookmarks over from IE due to account restrictions" - because as the IT deparment, you set those resrictions.

The favorites are stored in %UserProfile%\Favorites in folders and files, so there may be something you can do there to let users make copies of those files and import them some other way.

Also, if they have some problem with alternate web browsers (IE honors group policy for example aka those account restrictions, other browsers may or may not, don't know) then they should at least upgrade to the newest released IE - which is 8, not 7.

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  • Well our users do have access to their own home folders which does allow them to create bookmarks in IE, perhaps there is a way to redirect where chrome reads the favourites from?
    – Alan Parrish
    Jan 12, 2011 at 23:33
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If it doesn't work too well then the application needs to be fixed. Applications and system administrators should support user requirements and not the other way around.

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  • While this is an interesting comment, this doesn't really seem like this answers any part of the question. It also seems like you haven't had the miss-fortune of having to work with the tons of badly written software that seems common in schools.
    – Zoredache
    Jan 12, 2011 at 23:11
  • Well fixing the application is not possible as the company's own support website simply suggests to upgrade or switch browser and as the users require access to the service, us as system administrators are trying to meet their requirements by switching to chrome.
    – Alan Parrish
    Jan 12, 2011 at 23:31
  • The answer is "don't do it" especially with an irrational reason like "hating IE". That's very unprofessional. The correct answer is to pound on the application provider to do their job.
    – JOTN
    Jan 13, 2011 at 14:11
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You can now deploy Google Chrome as an msi through Group Policy:
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/chromebrowser.html

The installer allows you to set policies like the DefaultSearchProvider and control extensions, autofill, whether it should check to be the default browser, and more. You might see if that works any better for you. Even if you don't use Group Policy to deploy it, you might find the msi installer works better in your environment.

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