For those running non-powered systems, you probably already know that Microsoft doesn’t allow you to customize your Windows desktop like changing themes or adjusting icons. When you’re on such a computer, Windows displays a message inside the settings page that reads “You must start Windows before you can customize your PC.”

It seems that the team responsible for developing Edge has taken this idea and is now looking to implement the same in their browser as well. The latest version of Edge Canary released last month includes this change. We’ve already reported on Copilot ads within it, although it appears that ads are now part of the Windows ecosystem. Fortunately there are unofficial apps that help disable them.

However, this block of settings has flown under the radar for a while, as most users likely won’t be running non-activated copies of Windows for a long time. This change was first identified by Windows Report, who reported this last month.

The site spotted Edge Canary running behind a new command-line switch added “msEdgeLockSettingsInNonActivatedOS”, but the site could not confirm at that time whether the application actually locked Edge settings on a non-activated Windows PC.

However, once the story was picked up by others like GHacks, it’s now confirmed that the change is already in place, which means Microsoft is actively testing this feature in the Canary Channel. As such, a user will not be able to access certain settings within Edge if they wish.

As you can see in the image above, as in the Windows Settings app, a similar message is now displayed at the top of the Edge (Canary) Settings page that reads “We detect that your Windows is not activated, some limited customization has been performed.”

It will be interesting to see if this change eventually makes it to the stable channel or if Microsoft decides to remove it or tweak it in some way.