A question I often ask myself is: What do users want? In terms of their work environment, I believe that they want a device that “just works”. A device that does not hinder, but supports them in their daily operations. One that that immediately presents the user with the information that he/she is looking for.

The company I work for and I believe in simplifying access to information and applications, by combining everything that an end user needs to be productive directly, delivered to them from one online web app.

That is why it is important that this online workspace is available immediately when a user logs on to their device.

A while ago I saw the question “How to automatically open Microsoft Edge when a user logs in” asked in the Microsoft Intune forums on Technet.

As I already had a script running for several of our customers, of which I believed did just that, I uploaded my “Launch browser with a specific URL after a user logs on to a device” PowerShell script on the Technet Gallery, shared it with NeilCardan, and glady, it answered his question!

Now, exactly one year after I published my first blog post, i’m happy to share this solution on my blog too!

Invoke-LaunchBrowserAfterLogOn.ps1

The PowerShell script below will add a shortcut in the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp directory. All shortcuts in this directory will launch after a user logs in to a Windows device.

As the shortcut will be created in the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% directory, it will launch for any user that logs on the device.

param(
    [string]$ShortcutName         = "My Apps",
    [string]$ShortcutUrl          = "https://myapps.microsoft.com",
    [string]$ShortcutIconLocation = "https://www.microsoft.com/favicon.ico"
)

$WScriptShell = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell

$Shortcut = $WScriptShell.CreateShortcut("$env:ALLUSERSPROFILE\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\$ShortcutName.lnk") 
$Shortcut.TargetPath = $ShortcutUrl
if ($ShortcutIconLocation) {
    $Shortcut.IconLocation = $ShortcutIconLocation
}
$Shortcut.Save()

Make sure to configure the script to run in SYSTEM context to write to the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% directory, and assign it to devices.

If you have any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me using the comments section below, or on Twitter @jseerden.