The widespread use of Windows operating system can be attributed to its free nature. Yes, it’s a bit annoying, excludes you from personalization settings and blocks certain features. However, Windows 11 (and Windows 10) or any version of the operating system can be used without activation as long as you don’t mind.
Microsoft already has plenty of ways to let you know Windows isn’t activated, including through the Settings app, desktop, and other locations. Microsoft wants to go further. In a recent build of Microsoft Edge, Microsoft began testing several flags that could allow the company to block browser features when Windows 11 is not activated.
These features identify whether Windows is enabled:
- msEdgeActivatedStateCheckAndUpdate
- msEdgeNonActivatedOSTrigger
- msEdgeLockSettingsInNonActivatedOS
Windows Latest tried running the Edge Canary build with these features enabled individually. We made “msEdgeLockSettingsInNonActivatedOS” work, which blocks you from certain Edge browser settings.
After opening the Settings page in Edge, we noticed a banner at the top informing us that “We notice your Windows is not activated, some customizations have been limited.” We dug deeper and opened all the subpages of the Settings app.
Edge blocked access to the “When Edge Starts” settings for our Windows 11 virtual machine because it was not enabled. This page allows you to configure the page that launches when you open the Edge browser.
After enabling this feature, we did not find any other blocked settings. However, Microsoft may add more restrictions in future versions of Edge. For example, the company may not let you change new tab settings, hide MSN feed, change accent, dark theme, or other features.
Does it even make sense to block Edge settings?
Locking users out of Edge browser settings because they are using an unactivated version of Windows doesn’t make sense. Since Edge browser is available for Mac and mobile devices, why is the activation pop-up only for Windows users?
We see no benefit from these restrictions other than encouraging users to switch to Chrome or Firefox.
Browsers should not tempt you into purchasing a Windows license. This is one of those features that we sincerely hope never gets approved. Meanwhile, Microsoft is testing a resource control feature in the browser.
Edge will benefit from a RAM limiter feature
Windows Latest tested the resource control feature hidden in Edge Canary. It lets you set a maximum RAM size that Edge can use. So, if you have a low-end PC that stalls after running Edge, you can allocate a fixed amount of RAM.
Limiting browser RAM usage won’t improve performance but will ensure that other applications and Windows have the bare minimum system resources they need.
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