For those that run unactivated systems, you probably already know that Microsoft does not allow the personalization of your Windows desktop like changing themes or tweaking icons. When you are on such a PC, Windows displays a message inside the Settings page that reads "You need to activate Windows before you can personalize your PC".
It looks like the team in charge of developing Edge has taken that idea and is now looking to implement the same thing in its browser as well. The latest version of Edge Canary which was released last month has this change. We already reported about Copilot ads inside it, although it seems ads are now a part of the Windows ecosystem. Luckily there are unofficial apps that help to disable them.
However, this Settings block flew under the radar for a while as most users are unlikely to be running unactivated copies of Windows for any substantial length of time. This change was first spotted by WindowsReport, who reported about it last month.
The website noticed Edge Canary was running behind a newly added command line switch "msEdgeLockSettingsInNonActivatedOS," but the site was not able to confirm at that moment whether indeed the implementation blocked Edge settings on a non-activated Windows PC.
However, once the story was picked by others like GHacks, it has now been 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 some settings inside Edge if they wanted to.
As you can see in the image above, like in the Windows Settings app, there is a similar message now on display at the top inside the Edge (Canary) Settings page that reads"We notice your Windows is not activated, some customization has been limited."
It will be interesting to see if this change ultimately makes it out to the Stable channel or if Microsoft decides to axe it or tweak it in some way.