Disable Automatic Desktop Shortcut Creation for Microsoft Edge via Registry

Microsoft Edge now automatically creates a desktop shortcut after each update for every channel (Stable, Beta, Dev, Canary) on Windows 10/11, even if the user does not use the browser. This behavior can be permanently disabled by modifying the Windows registry.

Step 1: Open the Registry Editor (regedit) and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate . If the EdgeUpdate key does not exist under Microsoft , right‑click Microsoft , create a new key, and name it EdgeUpdate .

Step 2: Inside the EdgeUpdate key, right‑click, choose New → DWORD (32‑bit) Value , and name it CreateDesktopShortcutDefault .

Step 3: Double‑click CreateDesktopShortcutDefault and set its value data to 0 . Click OK to save.

This setting globally disables shortcut creation for all Edge channels. If you need per‑channel control, you can create separate DWORD values with the following names and still set their data to 0 :

Stable channel: CreateDesktopShortcut {56EB18F8-B008-4CBD-B6D2-8C97FE7E9062}

Beta channel: CreateDesktopShortcut {2CD8A007-E189-409D-A2C8-9AF4EF3C72AA}

Dev channel: CreateDesktopShortcut {0D50BFEC-CD6A-4F9A-964C-C7416E3ACB10}

Canary channel: CreateDesktopShortcut {65C35B14-6C1D-4122-AC46-7148CC9D6497}

After applying these changes, Edge will no longer place desktop shortcuts automatically, even after future updates.