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How to disable "Restore previous sessions" with GPO?

  • 2 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by cor-el

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Hello Community,

I have a bunch of dumb terminals that connect to some Windows 10 virtual desktops. Upon login, Firefox is started automatically in kiosk mode via a customised shortcut placed in all users' Startup folder.

The problem is that if Firefox crashes, at the next logon it shows a blank dark violet screen and it never gets to load the home page.

I noticed that if I kill it from Task Manager and I re-launch it from the Start menu in normal mode (not Kiosk), then I am presented with the Restore Session tab - see attached screenshot.

Clicking any of the options (restore or start new), just to make Firefox open, then closing it gracefully from the top-right X makes the autostart in kiosk mode work as expected.

I speculate that Firefox just lacks the smarts to "known" that in kiosk mode it is restricted from displaying the dialog, thus no user input will arrive ever.

I am not interested in any previous sessions, I just want Firefox to ignore the previous crash and open the home page.

I saw that various sources suggest fiddling with the user profile via about:config. This is NOT an option because in VDI I do not save users' profiles, and it should apply to any and all users, regardless which virtual desktop they log into.

Is there a way to achieve this using Group Policy?

Thank you.

Hello Community, I have a bunch of dumb terminals that connect to some Windows 10 virtual desktops. Upon login, Firefox is started automatically in kiosk mode via a customised shortcut placed in all users' Startup folder. The problem is that if Firefox crashes, at the next logon it shows a blank dark violet screen and it never gets to load the home page. I noticed that if I kill it from Task Manager and I re-launch it from the Start menu in normal mode (not Kiosk), then I am presented with the Restore Session tab - see attached screenshot. Clicking any of the options (restore or start new), just to make Firefox open, then closing it gracefully from the top-right X makes the autostart in kiosk mode work as expected. I speculate that Firefox just lacks the smarts to "known" that in kiosk mode it is restricted from displaying the dialog, thus no user input will arrive ever. I am not interested in any previous sessions, I just want Firefox to ignore the previous crash and open the home page. I saw that various sources suggest fiddling with the user profile via about:config. This is NOT an option because in VDI I do not save users' profiles, and it should apply to any and all users, regardless which virtual desktop they log into. Is there a way to achieve this using Group Policy? Thank you.
Attached screenshots

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You can change about:config settings with the Preferences group policy. You may want to enable private browsing mode with browser.privatebrowsing.autostart set to true.

You could also use the --private-window command line parameter.

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See also:

You may also want to set prefs to enable "Clear history when Firefox closes" and clear the browsing history and possibly others.