System-wide installation of Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer

admin-install-adblock-plus-for-explorer.md

Installing Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer as an administrator

This document describes how to manually install Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer on Microsoft Windows.

Downloading the MSI installer

Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer is distributed as an *.exe installer that is not suitable for a system-wide installation or possible automation. Luckily, it can be downloaded as both 32- and 64-bit *.msi installers from the Adblock Plus website:

• https://downloads.adblockplus.org/adblockplusie-1.6-x64.msi
• https://downloads.adblockplus.org/adblockplusie-1.6-x86.msi

GPO installs:

• https://downloads.adblockplus.org/adblockplusie-1.6-gpo-x86.msi
• https://downloads.adblockplus.org/adblockplusie-1.6-gpo-x64.msi

Please refer to the Adblock Plus forum for more information about the different installers.

Running the installer

There are two options:

1. Run the installer on the client machine directly.
2. Distribute the installer through Group Policy Objects.

Installing through msiexec

The following command performs the actual installation, similar to double-clicking the MSI file but without requiring further user interaction:

msiexec /q /i path\to\adblockplusie-1.X-xXX.msi

You should be able to use any of the distributed MSIs for this purpose. Please refer to the msiexec documentation for more information.

Installing through GPO

1. Open Group Policy Management and navigate to Forest\Domains\\[YOURDOMAINNAME].

2. Right-click the domain name and select Create a GPO in this domain and Link it here.
3. Type a GPO name and press Enter.
4. Right-click the newly created GPO and select Edit.
5. Navigate to Computer Configuration\Policies\Software Settings\Software Installation and create a new package.
6. Navigate to the Adblock Plus MSI, hosted in a shared folder, and select the deployment method.
7. Run GPUpdate /force to update the Group Policy.
8. Restart the Active Directory user to perform the installation.

If the installation does not work, debugging can be done by analyzing install logs. From the Start menu, enter Edit group policy, navigate to Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Installer and set the logging parameter to Enabled. Each installation now creates a log in the %TEMP% directory (C:\Windows\Temp by default).

Disabling user confirmation

Although you may consider the installation complete by now, Internet Explorer will ask for confirmation to enable the extension when the browser is started. This behavior can be prevented during the configuration by following these steps:

1. Press Win+R to open the Run dialog box.
2. Enter gpedit.msc. This opens the Group Policy Editor.

3. Navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer. From the right panel, double-click Automatically activate newly installed add-ons and set it to Enabled.

You can see the option enabled after clicking OK or applying the changes.

This approach is intended to enable, by default, all installed extensions in Internet Explorer so that the end user cannot accidentally click "Don't enable." That said, it also may represent a security risk since ALL extensions will be enabled by default.

Disabling automatic updates

Sometimes a system administrator wants to control the software in a centralized manner and not bother users with update prompts. The Adblock Plus team has implemented support for such a scenario. Refer to the announcement here. To disable automatic updates, add the following to the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AdblockPlus]
"disable_auto_updates"="true"

Please keep in mind that this will disable automatic updates, and in this case, please remember to keep an eye on https://adblockplus.org/releases/ for manual updates.

Disabling the first-run page

Disabling the first-run page, similar to disabling automatic updates, is triggered by a registry entry. Add the following to the registry if you wish to suppress the first-run page:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AdblockPlus]
"suppress_first_run_page"="true"

Note that both, suppress_first_fun_page and disable_auto_updates, are expected as string literal (REG_SZ) values.

Enabling the status bar

Adblock Plus for Internet Explorer resides in the status bar. Sometimes the status bar is disabled, in which case the user has no way to access the Adblock Plus settings. Adblock Plus presents a message box to enable the status bar. To disable this message, enable the status bar in Internet Explorer. There are multiple ways to do this, but essentially you will need to set a registry value:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MINIE]
"ShowStatusBar"="dword:00000001"

Please keep in mind that the GPO setting will override this. Refer to this link for information on how to enable the status bar through the GPO.

Is there a registry value or setting to uncheck "Allow some non-intrusive advertising"

i have serious issue for ads on my internet explorer and found some good resource with easy to understand steps here

The registry entry suggested:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\AdblockPlus]
"suppress_first_run_page"="true"

Does not work as intended. I tried replacing with a DWORD of value 1 but still no luck! I suspect the disable_auto_updates is also defective. The ShowStatusBar for IE does work however.

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