in IE 11, the Favourites Bar greyed out. I suspect maybe related to following GPOs that I applied:
1. Set IE Home Page: GPO->User Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> WindowsComponents -> Internet Explorer->Disable changing home page settings->Enable
2. Add favourite URL: GPO->User Configuration -> Preferences->Windows Settings->Shortcuts
However, I can't see anything wrong with those 2 GPO. But how come all of sudden favourites bar is disabled?
**Update - Add screenshot **
After long time without getting answer from anywhere, today, I accidentally found the solution myself.
Step 1: run gpresult to find which group policy blocked favourite bar. It turned out it is called: Default Domain Policy, and there is a setting called Turn Off Favourites Bar. The state of the policy is Enabled. As I mentioned before, I never did anything to this policy, not sure how it got activated. Perhaps triggered by the 2 other group policy as a MS bug?
Step 2: on domain controller, run gpedit, go to user configuration>administrative templates>windows components>internet Explorer>turn that policy off.
The favourites bar is now showing up.