CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-chromegoogle-chrome-extension
Prateek Gupta
Prateek Gupta

Reputation: 109

chrome custom extension avaiable to all windows users on a VDI

I have a customized chrome extension that I have installed on chrome with admin account. I want that extension to be available to any windows user who logs on to the machine. I have tried installing it through windows registry, but it did not show up for users. They had to manually load it to chrome via the chrome Load unpacked option in developer mode of chrome. can anyone suggest an automated way to achieve this,I really don't want users adding extension manually. the extension is not published on chrome web store I had added it to chrome by load unpacked option.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 181

Answers (2)

jC61
jC61

Reputation: 163

You can install and load the unpacked Chrome extension for all users in VDI following these steps:

  1. Open the Registry Editor.

  2. Navigate to 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Google\Chrome\Extensions' for 32bit (x86) OS or 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Google\Chrome\Extensions' for 64bit (x64) OS.

  3. Now create a new key under 'Extensions' with the same name as the ID of your Chrome extension (you can find the ID in the Chrome Extensions page).

  4. In the newly created key, create a new 'String Value' with the name 'path'. Set its value to the full path of the root directory of unpacked extension on the system.

  5. Create another string named “version” and set its value to match your extension version.

  6. The changes to the registry will automatically propagate to all users on the system.

  7. Run a script to trigger Chrome to reload its extensions (like restarting the browser or launching a new browser instance). Users should be able to see the extension loaded across all profiles.

But Editing the Windows Registry can have major impacts on your system. Proceed with caution, back up your data first and do it at your own risk.

Upvotes: 0

khosbilegt.b
khosbilegt.b

Reputation: 21

If you have enough of a budget, you can take a look at Chrome Enterprise. It allows you to make Google accounts company-managed and allows you to automatically toggle extensions when they log in to their accounts. It's $50 per user last I checked.

If you don't, I suggest writing a bash script that automatically does it on startup. It's redundant to write a regex to change the preferences for a specific user in one of the following file paths (which differ based on the user, with the default user being Default). It's in JSON format so could be quite simple.

  • Windows: "%LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\User Data"
  • Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/
  • Linux: ~/.config/google-chrome/

Upvotes: 0

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