Programmatically add trusted sites to Internet Explorer

I'm doing an IE automation project using WatiN.

When a file to be downloaded is clicked, I get the following in the Internet Explorer Information bar:

To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has blocked this site from downloading files to you computer.

In order to download the report, I can manually add the site to Internet Explorer's list of trusted sites, but I would prefer to check programmatically in .NET to see if the site is trusted and add it to the list if it is not.

FYI, I'm currently using IE7.

Solution 1:

Have a look at this

Basically it looks as if all you have to do is create registry key in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains\DOMAINNAME

then a REG_DWORD value named "http" with value==2

Solution 2:

Here's the implementation that I came up with for writing the registry keys in .NET.

Thanks for setting me in the right direction, Ben.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using Microsoft.Win32;


namespace ReportManagement
{
    class ReportDownloader
    {
        [STAThread]
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            const string domainsKeyLocation = @"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains";
            const string domain = @"newsite.com";
            const int trustedSiteZone = 0x2;

            var subdomains = new Dictionary<string, string>
                                 {
                                     {"www", "https"},
                                     {"www", "http"},
                                     {"blog", "https"},
                                     {"blog", "http"}
                                 };

            RegistryKey currentUserKey = Registry.CurrentUser;

            currentUserKey.GetOrCreateSubKey(domainsKeyLocation, domain, false);

            foreach (var subdomain in subdomains)
            {
                CreateSubdomainKeyAndValue(currentUserKey, domainsKeyLocation, domain, subdomain, trustedSiteZone);
            }

            //automation code
        }

        private static void CreateSubdomainKeyAndValue(RegistryKey currentUserKey, string domainsKeyLocation, 
            string domain, KeyValuePair<string, string> subdomain, int zone)
        {
            RegistryKey subdomainRegistryKey = currentUserKey.GetOrCreateSubKey(
                string.Format(@"{0}\{1}", domainsKeyLocation, domain), 
                subdomain.Key, true);

            object objSubDomainValue = subdomainRegistryKey.GetValue(subdomain.Value);

            if (objSubDomainValue == null || Convert.ToInt32(objSubDomainValue) != zone)
            {
                subdomainRegistryKey.SetValue(subdomain.Value, zone, RegistryValueKind.DWord);
            }
        }
    }

    public static class RegistryKeyExtensionMethods
    {
        public static RegistryKey GetOrCreateSubKey(this RegistryKey registryKey, string parentKeyLocation, 
            string key, bool writable)
        {
            string keyLocation = string.Format(@"{0}\{1}", parentKeyLocation, key);

            RegistryKey foundRegistryKey = registryKey.OpenSubKey(keyLocation, writable);

            return foundRegistryKey ?? registryKey.CreateSubKey(parentKeyLocation, key);
        }

        public static RegistryKey CreateSubKey(this RegistryKey registryKey, string parentKeyLocation, string key)
        {
            RegistryKey parentKey = registryKey.OpenSubKey(parentKeyLocation, true); //must be writable == true
            if (parentKey == null) { throw new NullReferenceException(string.Format("Missing parent key: {0}", parentKeyLocation)); }

            RegistryKey createdKey = parentKey.CreateSubKey(key);
            if (createdKey == null) { throw new Exception(string.Format("Key not created: {0}", key)); }

            return createdKey;
        }
    }
}

Solution 3:

Glad I came across your postings. The only thing I can add to the excellent contributions already is that a different registry key is used whenever the URI contains an IP address i.e. the address isn't a fully qualified domain name.

In this instance you have to use an alternative approach:

Imagine I wish to add an IP address to the trusted sites: say 10.0.1.13 and I don't care what protocol.

Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Ranges, I create a key e.g. "Range1" and the inside that create the following values:

A DWORD with name "*" and value 0x2 (for all protocols(*) and trusted site(2)) A string with name ":Range" with value "10.0.1.13"

Solution 4:

Using powershell it is quite easy.

#Setting IExplorer settings
Write-Verbose "Now configuring IE"
#Add http://website.com as a trusted Site/Domain
#Navigate to the domains folder in the registry
set-location "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings"
set-location ZoneMap\Domains

#Create a new folder with the website name
new-item website/ -Force
set-location website/
new-itemproperty . -Name * -Value 2 -Type DWORD -Force
new-itemproperty . -Name http -Value 2 -Type DWORD -Force
new-itemproperty . -Name https -Value 2 -Type DWORD -Force