IE Start Page to Show a Different "popular sites" Number of Rows

Introduction

In my company, we have a really slow internet connection. To speed up the internet experience, I've set up all the computers to start IEx (8, 9 or 10) with a blank page that shows the most popular sites in the typical table look.

This enhances the loading speed as IEx has no need to load something from the Internet and gives the user a direct link to the most frequently visited pages.

This tip is here for two reasons:

• Allowing others to benefit from it.
• Allowing me to find how to get it done when I'm using other computers.

Configuring IEx Home Page

To get IEx to show the most popular sites as the home page, you need to update the home page in IEx's settings:

1. Alt+X for tools
2. Internet options
3. General tab
4. Introduce the text about:Tabs in the home page

Now if you restart IEx, you'll see that the home page will be the tabbed view for the most popular sites.

Configuring IEx to Show More Popular Sites

In order to do that, you'll have to edit the windows registry.

1. Press Win+R.
2. Write regedit and press return.
3. In the registry editor, search the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing\NewTabPage.
4. Once you've selected NewTabPage, then add a new value (Toolbar >> Edit >> New >> DWORD (32-bit) Value) with the name NumRows.
5. Modify this newly added value to a different number of rows, i.e.: 4.

Final Thoughts

Now you've made all the changes and only by restarting IEx, you will see the results.

Keep in mind that every time you remove a tab from that view, you are adding it into a windows registry list that is used to ban sites from appearing into the tabbed view, so be aware that removed once means removed forever.  If you want to recover a site from the excluded sites, you can do it by removing it from the registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TabbedBrowsing\NewTabPage\Exclude.