Proxy Settings pushed by GPO not applying to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9

I support a Windows 2003 Active Directory Domain, until today only Windows XP clients and Internet Explorer 8.

We use a proxy server to filter and monitor the internet and we push the configuration for that proxy server via Group Policy. Our current GPO works perfectly with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8.

Today we got our first Windows 7 client and I noticed the proxy settings from our Windows 2003 Active Directory Domain were not applying top the Windows 7 machine running Internet Explorer 9.

It turned out there were two reasons the settings were not applying. The first is a no brainer. I hadn’t updated my Internet Explorer Group Policy Administrative Template to support Internet Explorer 9. That was easy enough to fix by going here and updating my Administrative Template.

After updating the Administrative Template I figured I’d be done. Turns out I was wrong. I ran ‘rsop.msc’ and ‘gpresult /r’ and both showed the proxy settings were being applied but Internet Explorer wasn’t using our proxy server.

Turns out there was a second problem and it was FAR more difficult to figure out. I did some research and found others complaining about this problem. Removing proxy settings for ‘GOPHER’ from their Internet Explorer GPO resolved the problem for the majority of these users. To remove GOPHER settings open up your group policy and make the following tweak:

User Configuration
  Windows Settings
    Internet Explorer Maintenance
      Connections
        Proxy Settings
          Uncheck 'Use the same proxy server for all addresses'
          Delete any settings for Gopher and SOCKS

This didn’t solve the problem for me but it may have had a hand in it.

The second thing I had to do in my case was to disable caching of auto-proxy scripts and disable changing automatic configuration settings. My understanding from the post I read was that the cache can become corrupt and cause a bunch of problems. To make this change open up your Internet Explorer GPO again and make the following changes:

User Configuration
  Administrative Templates
    Windows Components
      Internet Explorer
        Disable caching of Auto-Proxy scripts: ENABLED
        Disable changing Automatic Configuration settings: ENABLED

Once I’d made both of those tweaks I ran a quick ‘gpupdate /force’ and that was it! Things started working properly.

There seems to be a bug in Internet Explorer 9, or at least the version I’m running, where if you go into the proxy settings under ‘Internet Options’ you won’t actually see your proxy servers name in the ‘Address:’ box. I’ll see if that clears up once I get Windows Updates working on these Windows 7 machines or when we get to Internet Explorer 10.

References

8 thoughts on “Proxy Settings pushed by GPO not applying to Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 9”

  1. Hi Eric

    I had exactly same problem and disabling caching of auto-proxy scripts fixed my problem. Thank you very much for sharing this information.

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.