How to open Internet Explorer in full screen kiosk mode

Posted on July 15, 2008 at 5:34 am

Did you know it was possible to open Internet Explorer in full screen mode so that there is no toolbars at the top, no status bar at the bottom, and no scroll bars? Absolutely nothing other than the web page!

This is also known as kiosk mode and it is used on mostly public computers where administrators do not want the public to be able to change any of the settings, etc. It’s also really useful if you simply want to maximize the viewing area when browsing the Internet. Here’s an example of what IE looks like in normal and kiosk modes:

Normal IE:

IE Kiosk Mode:

Note that both images are from the very top of the computer screen. Here’s how you can setup a separate icon to launch IE in kiosk mode automatically. On a blank area on your desktop, right-click and choose New and then Shortcut.

In the location box, copy and paste the following line exactly as shown, including the quotes:

“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE” –k

Click Next and type in “Internet Explorer Kiosk” or whatever you like to distinguish the link from the normal Internet Explorer icon on your desktop. Click Finish to create the shortcut.

By default, when you click on the link, IE will load up with the default home page. The fun part comes in actually navigating around in kiosk mode since there are no buttons to click, i.e. Back, Forward, etc and no address bar to type in website URLs!

However, you can get an entire list of Internet Explorer keyboard shortcuts at the Windows Help site. The basic commands you’ll need to know are:

Alt + Home – Go to your home page

Backspace – Go back one page (previous page)

Alt + Right Arrow – Go forward one page (next page)

CTRL + O – Open a new website or page (type in a website URL)

CTRL + W – Close the browser window

Even though it takes a little time getting used to, browsing the Internet in full screen mode in IE is actually pretty nice. There are no distractions and it effectively uses all of your screen real estate. Enjoy!

» Filed Under Internet Explorer Tips

Comments

15 Responses to “How to open Internet Explorer in full screen kiosk mode”

Jamie said on : July 15th, 2008 at 7:59 am

The pictures are of Firefox.

Gopinath M said on : July 15th, 2008 at 8:42 am

Aseem, this is an excellent finding. It is very useful to watch movies and browse websites with out any other distractions. Do we have any option similar to this in Firefox?

Danny V said on : July 15th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

You can press F11 in Firefox (as in IE) to have it go to Full Screen mode when you need it too.

(As Jamie said, the first screenshot is of Firefox )

abhishek said on : July 17th, 2008 at 1:08 am

quite useful tip…thanks

Geo said on : August 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 am

Excellent programme……u r very genious..thanks a lot.

Karen Freeman said on : October 18th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

I am using IE version 7.0 and your approach doesn’t work because you can’t put quotes before C:\ etc. Windows automatically puts in another C:\ before the “C:\ that you’ve inserted.
And if you get rid of the “C:\ and just start with “Program Files etc., that doesn’t work either.

Why not just tell your users to use the Function key F11? It’s a toggle, it’s fast and easy, and it works beautifully.

Karen

Sorpigal said on : February 6th, 2009 at 7:25 am

@Karen Freeman

F11 and -k are not at all the same thing. F11 gives you “full screen” mode, whereas -k gives you “kiosk” mode.

Try hitting F11 while in kiosk mode and you get… nothing. Try opening the file menu by hitting ALT+F… nothing. The browser is locked down in this mode. In full screen mode the user can easily and obviously escape back to normal mode and all normal functions work.

The original post is incorrect in equating full screen mode and kiosk mode. Which you use depends on what you really want.

web designer phuket said on : June 29th, 2009 at 12:53 am

I think this very good for local computers, is there a kiosk mode for online web browsers? When a visitor clicks a link, it automaticaly loads in F11 full-screen mode?

Anders said on : August 13th, 2009 at 8:49 am

Hi, nice trick. But can you open IE in kiosk mode on a “secondary screen” ?

Regards Anders

Rajesh Reddy said on : September 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 am

Very useful tip, thanks

Sarah said on : December 11th, 2009 at 10:56 am

Also, you can use other command line arguments with IE 8, such as -private to start in InPrivate mode and -extoff to start IE with no extensions.

and -k for kiosk mode is definitely different than using F11 for full-screen mode!

rachelle said on : January 2nd, 2010 at 11:48 am

Thanks, but how do you turn off Kiosk mode now!? I can’t get rid of it!

phuket said on : January 3rd, 2010 at 10:52 pm

I’m having a similar problem. Can you tell me how to turn off Kiosk Mode in IE?

Tony Denicola said on : January 10th, 2010 at 5:19 pm

How do I keep my computer opening in full screen without hitting Maximize each time I open a website?

Some computers have a close and some have exit in file menu. I was told to stetch picture to fill the screen then hold down the ctrl and shift. Seems to woork only on computers that have close in the file menu exit ones it does not work

Blogspace of Eric Brodeur » Internet Explorer’s kiosk mode and the sad reality of Internet security Says:

[...] and not easily exited from. This got me thinking about “kiosk mode” and web browsers. Internet Explorer does kiosk mode quite well, presenting a full-screen experience without any on-screen navigation controls (although [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 4:36 pm