I cannot believe Microsoft is adding this simple feature to Edge just now

While Microsoft's latest AI endeavours push users away, it's simple additions like this that could win some favors back.

I’ve been covering Microsoft products for quite some time now, but there are still some tiny details I don’t know. For example, I have to admit that I was today years old when I found out you can’t natively create Desktop shortcuts for Edge user profiles. This has been possible in other browsers for more than a decade.

But that’s finally going to change soon. Microsoft just released a Microsoft 365 roadmap entry that promises an in-browser option to pin Edge user profiles to Desktop is coming.

Here’s what the Microsoft 365 roadmap entry 558311 says:

“A new toggle is added in the profile settings to give users the ability to create or remove the profile desktop shortcut. Available only for Windows devices.”

I don’t use Edge as my main browser, and I was genuinely surprised when I came across this roadmap entry. Apparently, you can now only create Edge profile shortcuts with a workaround that involves adding a custom shortcut to your Desktop and pointing it to the file path of your profile. Unbelievable.

Even though this is just a minor change for Microsoft Edge, it can prove extremely useful. Many people use multiple browser profiles to separate work and private stuff. So, having these profiles right on the desktop is a much simpler and faster way to access them.

Microsoft is pushing the latest technologies, like Copilot Cowork and other advanced AI tools, heavily, and users don’t always appreciate them. Maybe the way to win users back is actually improving and optimizing existing products, instead of trying to force novelties where they don’t necessarily belong. Even if we’re talking about something as small as a simple toggle.

The toggle for creating Edge profile shortcuts is only coming to Windows for now, and Microsoft will start rolling it out to users in May.

Source

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Posted Thursday 12 March 2026 at 5:13 pm AEST (my time).

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