ELEANOR WORT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to our App Assure
and Microsoft Edge tips and tricks session.
I'm Eleanor Wort, and I'm a program manager
on the App Assure team.
WAYNE TIPTON: Hello! My name is Wayne Tipton,
and I'm a support engineer for Microsoft.
ELEANOR WORT: Here's what we'd like to cover
in the next 20 minutes or so.
First, we'll let you know what App Assure is
and the scope of our program.
Then, we'll cover tips and tricks
for deploying Microsoft Edge,
and then conclude with how you can get started.
Before we dive in, I wanted to share
a little bit about App Assure.
We launched two years ago with the promise
that we would help customers fix apps that didn't work
after upgrading to Windows 10 or Office 365 Pro Plus.
We did this because Microsoft is committed
to helping you make sure all of
your business-critical apps work
on the latest version of our technology.
Our customers come to us believing that about 6 percent
of their applications will have compatibility issues.
Since our program inception,
we've evaluated more than 750,000 apps,
and in reality, less than one-third of a percent of them
actually require remediation.
In other words, 99.7 percent of your apps will work
with the latest versions of our software.
This is because Microsoft products are built
with application compatibility in mind.
For that small percentage of apps that do have issues,
our dedicated team of app compat experts will guide you
through the remediation process, from start to finish.
App Assure is included as part of your eligible subscription
at no additional cost.
We work directly with you to troubleshoot
and find the root cause of an application issue,
then determine how to fix it.
If it's an issue with a product like Windows or Office,
we work with Microsoft product teams to fix it.
In some cases, there are problems with third-party apps,
where we work directly with the software vendor
to fix your issue.
Or, it might be an issue with your
line-of-business application.
So, we help you fix your code or provide other mitigations.
Our goal is to leave your business in a better state
after you work with our team.
This includes helping you to make your apps future-proof
and resilient to subsequent product updates
using remediations that don't compromise the integrity
of your application security.
As a quick reminder, App Assure is available
for eligible in Microsoft 365 or Windows 10 plans
of 150-plus licenses.
Since launching, we've added promises
to help ensure app compatibility for Microsoft Edge;
Windows Virtual Desktop; and, most recently, Windows 10
on ARM 64 devices.
For Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 apps, compat shimming
and settings changes are a common fix for customer issues.
In this case, we work with you to create a shim,
or a small library, where we modify the parameters
that are getting passed to the API
to resolve compatibility issues.
For Microsoft Edge, IE mode makes it easy to use all
of the sites your organization needs in a single browser.
Microsoft Edge uses the integrated Chromium engine
for modern sites and the Trident MSHTML engine
from IE 11 for legacy sites.
We'll dive deeper into Microsoft Edge
with Wayne in just a moment.
Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session
enables multiple concurrent interactive sessions
and is supported exclusively in Windows Virtual Desktop,
also known as WVD.
Customers have faced issues
with moving applications currently hosted
in an on-premise remote desktop session environment
to Windows 10 multi-session on WVD
because they are hard-coded to work only on server OS.
To resolve this issue, App Assure engineers work
to provide guidance for either updating
the application code or updating the installer
to get the application working on WVD.
For customers deploying Windows 10 on ARM devices,
such as the Surface Pro X, we now offer
our compatibility promise to them.
PCs have traditionally been powered by X86 processors,
but there's a growing ecosystem of PCs powered
by ARM-based processors.
The ARM architecture enables PCs to
have additional benefits,
such as all-day battery life
and built-in LTE cellular connectivity.
32-bit apps that don't rely on our drivers
will just work using X86 emulation on ARM devices.
And the 64-bit emulation feature is currently available
under the Windows Insider Preview.
In the last few months, we've worked closely
with many ISVs that have kernel drivers
in their applications and helped
them create ARM-native drivers.
Most ISVs had very little difficulty
in porting their drivers to ARM64,
with the help of App Assure engineers
addressing any technical blockers they faced.
Now, let's take a step back
and chat with Wayne, who is one of
our App Assure Microsoft Edge support engineers.
Welcome, Wayne.
WAYNE TIPTON: Hello, Eleanor. Thanks for having me.
ELEANOR WORT: So a year ago, we launched Microsoft Edge,
which is built on the Chromium engine.
Can you tell me a little bit about the benefits?
WAYNE TIPTON: Sure.
A few of the benefits include Microsoft Edge being built
on Chromium open-source project, and Microsoft Edge
is backed by Microsoft security and innovation.
Microsoft Edge runs legacy and modern apps
in the same browser using their new dual-engine browser,
which means that you don't have to switch back and forth
between Microsoft Edge and IE to get your work done.
Microsoft Edge is also more secure
than Google Chrome for businesses on Windows 10
because it blocks more phishing and malware.
ELEANOR WORT: So, Microsoft Edge is
built on the Chromium engine
with legacy apps in mind.
And because of this, we're finding
that customers are excited to consolidate
and move to Microsoft Edge, which is great.
So Wayne, based on your experience
as a Microsoft support engineer,
what tips or tricks do you have
for customers to ensure a successful migration?
WAYNE TIPTON: Well, the good news is, the majority of apps
and sites will work on Microsoft Edge.
We also have tools available for customers
to inventory apps and let them know which sites
may need to use built-in compatibility features
before starting their migration and Microsoft Edge.
With any migration, it's important to do inventory
of the sites and apps in your environment.
Specifically, we have tools like Enterprise Site Discovery,
which allows customers to inventory their sites and apps.
Then, identify any legacy technologies,
such as ActiveX controls or Silverlight.
With this information, you can then plan the best way
to implement those sites to work in Microsoft Edge.
These tools collect metadata about how sites
are being used in your organization.
The end result, which you can see here,
is an actionable report where you gain insights
for how to best implement Microsoft Edge browser
in your organization.
In this example, we've identified a few potential issues
with Microsoft Edge that may need additional configurations,
such as IE mode.
ELEANOR WORT: Wow, it's great to see that you get a report
that shows you actionable feedback.
You mentioned some sites may need to use IE mode.
Could you elaborate on what that is
and why someone would need to use it?
WAYNE TIPTON: Sure.
IE mode enables legacy Internet Explorer websites
to be displayed within Microsoft Edge browser.
Modern browsers don't support legacy technology
like ActiveX controls.
Microsoft is aware that many of our customers
are still dependent on these controls
for their business needs.
Microsoft wants to ensure our customers can take advantage
of modern browser features while still being able
to use those legacy sites and apps.
So, we've brought Internet Explorer
into Microsoft Edge as IE mode.
Now, users don't have to go back
and forth between Edge and IE.
ELEANOR WORT: It's definitely exciting
to see the product evolution,
but what if a customer has really old sites
that were dependent on Doc mode in IE?
WAYNE TIPTON: That's a great question.
The good news is, is that we retain backwards compatibility
by keeping older features like
the various doc modes available on Microsoft Edge
in IE mode.
ELEANOR WORT: It's definitely fantastic
that we're continuing to support
those longtime IE users.
What if a customer begins their Microsoft Edge migration
without doing an inventory first?
WAYNE TIPTON: Fortunately, it's quite easy to understand
which sites need to use IE mode after customers
have already started evaluating Microsoft Edge
in their environment
because customers will immediately see symptoms
that their site isn't working.
You'll know when things are broken
because they won't look right or work right.
Now, I don't recommend this,
but I had a customer that did not perform an inventory
before migrating and made Microsoft Edge
the default browser for every user.
As you can imagine, their help desk
was flooded with calls about a few sites
that weren't working properly.
Most sites did work, and for those sites that had issues,
I recommended using the Open in IE mode feature.
The great thing about this feature is it allows you
to quickly reload the site and validate
if the issue can be resolved.
Eleanor, let me show you how the
Open in IE mode feature works.
First, you'll need to enable some Microsoft Edge policies.
To do that, you'll need to go to your Group Policy editor,
and then go to Microsoft Edge Group Policy folder,
and enable "Allow Internet Explorer mode testing,"
"Configure Internet Explorer integration,"
and "Configure enterprise mode site list."
Enabling these will allow us to open the sites
in Internet Explorer mode within
the Microsoft Edge browser.
From here, we can see that the Silverlight site
isn't rendering properly in Microsoft Edge.
This is because it's not supported natively.
Now, this will be a good time to try reloading
the site in IE mode.
So, if I go to the top right of the screen
and select the three dots, then I go down
to Select more tools, then select
Open sites in Internet Explorer mode,
now you can see that the Silverlight site renders correctly
and is working as expected.
After validating this, we can go to the site list
and add the appropriate URLs to ensure
it opens in IE mode for all users.
ELEANOR WORT: Wow! That was really simple.
Thanks for showing us that feature.
We know there can be some authentication issues
for sites using IE mode.
How do customers resolve this?
WAYNE TIPTON: With Microsoft Edge
being a dual-engine browser,
there's a lot of authentication communication going
on between the browsers.
One of the things that simplifies this
is identifying those authentication sites
and listing them as neutral.
Listing a site as neutral means that it can pass cookies
and authentication credentials freely
between Microsoft Edge and IE mode.
When you don't have neutral sites identified,
the communication between Microsoft Edge
and IE mode can break.
I'd like to show you how to remediate authentication issues
using neutral sites.
One example you may see is that you're prompted
for your credentials multiple times
after you've already logged on to your corporate network.
We're trying to reach portal.azure.com,
which we've set up to simulate a legacy site for the demo.
We get to the authentication prompt,
we put in our email . . . and password.
Then, you can see that the site breaks.
ELEANOR WORT: Yeah, we can definitely see that it's cycling
between the portal and the authentication page.
WAYNE TIPTON: To fix this, we just need to identify
the authentication servers,
and this is easily done in Microsoft Edge.
We can use the net log tool in Microsoft Edge
to capture network traffic.
We do this because the tool lets us see all
the information that the website is requesting from servers.
One or more of those servers are authentication servers.
Before we navigate to net log, we want to clear our cache
to make sure we're capturing the issue correctly.
Now, to get to net log, you navigate to Edge://net-export.
And then, click "Start logging to disk."
Then, you would open a new tab
and begin to reproduce the issue.
Now, we'll navigate back and stop the log capture.
At this point, we can now open that log viewer.
Once we have net log open, go to the event tabs on the left,
and you can also expand the columns to see
the available data.
First, we're looking for the URL from portal.azure.com,
which is the site where we started our reproduction.
To find this easier, we can search for "portal.azure.com"
in the search bar at the top.
Once we find that, then we're looking
for the authentication server URL
that follows the failure entry.
Usually, these are easy to identify because their named
something simple, like "login.microsoftonline.com."
Sometimes, you may not know which site
is your authentication server, but that's OK because
we can validate those sites that we're not sure about
by adding them to the site list and testing them.
There may be multiple authentication servers.
In our case, we have login.microsoftonline.com
and login.live.com.
So, we'll add both of these sites as neutral.
From here, we go to our site list
and add login.microsoftonline.com and login.live.com
as neutral sites.
You'll notice in the Enterprise mode site list manager
that a neutral site is referred to as "none."
Then, save.
And now we'll go force the site list update.
Now, you can see that the sites are listed as neutral.
And, it's always a good practice to clear the browser cache.
Now, we go back and validate
that we can reach portal.azure.com
and can log in without any issues.
ELEANOR WORT: Wayne, thank you so much
for walking us through
these Microsoft Edge tips and tricks.
It's been really helpful, and we hope that customers
can utilize some of these steps to help
with their Microsoft Edge deployment.
WAYNE TIPTON: Thank you. My pleasure, Eleanor.
ELEANOR WORT: If you're experiencing deployment issues
with Microsoft Edge, FastTrack offers assistance.
FastTrack is your advisor to help you deploy Microsoft 365.
It's an ongoing benefit for customers with 150
or more licenses of eligible Microsoft 365 plans.
FastTrack assists with workloads across
the Microsoft 365 suite, including Windows 10;
Microsoft 365; and,
as we've been talking about, Microsoft Edge.
In addition to the App Assure service,
FastTrack also helps you configure identity,
security, compliance, and cloud management;
enabling Microsoft Teams; and, for customers
with more than 500 eligible licenses, migrate your data.
To wrap things up, I'd like to let you know
how you can reach us.
If you have Microsoft 365 deployment questions,
reach out to FastTrack at www.microsoft.com/FastTrack.
For questions with Microsoft Edge,
talk to a Microsoft expert
at aka.ms/MicrosoftEdgeFastTrack.
And, for any compatibility questions,
contact the App Assure team
at aka.ms/MicrosoftEdgeAppAssure.
Wayne and I appreciate you taking the time
to watch our video.
WAYNE TIPTON: Thank you.