Control communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service

In Microsoft Edge, the Experimentation and Configuration Service is used to deploy Experimentation and Configuration payload.

Experimentation payload consists of a list of early in development features that Microsoft is enabling for testing and feedback.

Configuration payload consists of a list of settings that Microsoft wants to deploy to Microsoft Edge to optimize user experience. For example, configuration payload may specify how often Microsoft Edge sends requests to the Experimentation and Configuration Service to retrieve the newest payload.

Additionaly, configuration payload may also contain a list of actions to take on certain domains for compatibility reasons. For example, the browser may override the User Agent string on a website if that website is broken due to the new User Agent string on Microsoft Edge. Each of these actions is intended to be temporary while Microsoft tries to resolve the issue with the site owner.

If you set this policy to 'FullMode', the full payload is downloaded from the Experimentation and Configuration Service. This includes both the experimentation and configuration payloads.

If you set this policy to 'ConfigurationsOnlyMode', only the configuration payload is delivered.

If you set this policy to 'RestrictedMode', the communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service is stopped completely.

If you don't configure this policy, on a managed device on Stable and Beta channels the behavior is the same as the 'ConfigurationsOnlyMode'.

If you don't configure this policy, on an unmanaged device the behavior is the same as the 'FullMode'.

Policy options mapping:

* FullMode (2) = Retrieve configurations and experiments

* ConfigurationsOnlyMode (1) = Retrieve configurations only

* RestrictedMode (0) = Disable communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service

Use the preceding information when configuring this policy.

Control communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service

0. Retrieve configurations and experiments
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
   Value Name	ExperimentationAndConfigurationServiceControl
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	2

1. Retrieve configurations only
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
   Value Name	ExperimentationAndConfigurationServiceControl
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	1

2. Disable communication with the Experimentation and Configuration Service
   

   Registry Hive	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER
   Registry Path	Software\Policies\Microsoft\Edge
   Value Name	ExperimentationAndConfigurationServiceControl
   Value Type	REG_DWORD
   Value	0