With the release of Chrome v45, Silverlight no longer works and, thus, neither does the Application Catalog.  I know that Chrome was never a supported browser for ConfigMgr, and likely never will be, but we are a Google Apps district and we stuck in a bit of a conundrum at the moment.  The district (600 staff, 5500 students) heavily utilizes Google Apps for Edu and so the default browser is set to Chrome.  With Chrome ending NPAPI plugin support in v45 this has now left us with a bunch of headaches to solve, including easy access to the Application Catalog.

Typically, users would open Software Center and click on the "Find additional software.." link in the software center.  Chrome would open as its the default browser, they would auth and away they went.  We deploy many apps to Devices and some to Users so we have them go into the Software Center first.  But now, Chrome complicates things and its not streamlined for them.

So, is there any way to force the Application Catalog to open in IE?  I found some articles searching around for some workarounds, but none are suitable for an enterprise network.  The ultimate fix would be to set IE to the default browser, but that will cause issues with Google Apps.  Catch 20-20.

Id appreciate any thoughts on this or how other orgs are tackling this.

Thanks-

Would it be possible to make shortcut on the desktop or start up folder.

You could make a IE shortcut that start the application catalog.

Could be something like this "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe https://web catalog"

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire 17 hours 19 minutes ago
• Proposed as answer by Jason SandysMVP 16 hours 54 minutes ago
• Marked as answer by pseudoyams 16 hours 48 minutes ago

Yes, that is the "backup" plan but it would be nice to have it the same way users were accessing it in the past

Well the behavior you want to change is the one embed in the OS.

When you click a link the OS by default look to open it using the assign software. In your case it's Google chrome. This is not a SCCM issue but a browser/OS issue.

Maybe try looking into a way for a specific URL to have a specific software assign to it but this sound like a huge mess.

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire 16 hours 54 minutes ago
• Proposed as answer by Jason SandysMVP 16 hours 54 minutes ago

Maybe try looking into a way for a specific URL to have a specific software assign to it but this sound like a huge mess.

I came across an article that describes that and, yes, I agree itll be a huge mess. Seems like a shortcut is the only viable solution.

Is there any way to remove the "Find additional software..." link from the Software Center?  Id like to remove any confusion if we will be using a shortcut on the desktop for the future,

You can't do it from SCCM. The only think i could see would be to remove the software center if you don't use it but still would keep it and just educate the users.

You could maybe find a way to modified the software center software but it would require fiddling with the source and making change to the code.

Some one made a post about removing the software center 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c8955554-1488-4760-8e6b-496b828a656a/remove-hide-software-center-from-the-start-menu?forum=configmanagerdeployment

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire 15 hours 3 minutes ago

Would it be possible to make shortcut on the desktop or start up folder.

You could make a IE shortcut that start the application catalog.

Could be something like this "C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe https://web catalog"

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Friday, September 04, 2015 2:34 PM
• Proposed as answer by Jason SandysMVP Friday, September 04, 2015 3:00 PM
• Marked as answer by pseudoyams Friday, September 04, 2015 3:05 PM

Well the behavior you want to change is the one embed in the OS.

When you click a link the OS by default look to open it using the assign software. In your case it's Google chrome. This is not a SCCM issue but a browser/OS issue.

Maybe try looking into a way for a specific URL to have a specific software assign to it but this sound like a huge mess.

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Friday, September 04, 2015 2:59 PM
• Proposed as answer by Jason SandysMVP Friday, September 04, 2015 3:00 PM

You can't do it from SCCM. The only think i could see would be to remove the software center if you don't use it but still would keep it and just educate the users.

You could maybe find a way to modified the software center software but it would require fiddling with the source and making change to the code.

Some one made a post about removing the software center 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c8955554-1488-4760-8e6b-496b828a656a/remove-hide-software-center-from-the-start-menu?forum=configmanagerdeployment

• Edited by Frederick Dicaire Friday, September 04, 2015 4:50 PM