customising windows 10 start menu with server 2012R2

[WHS Ict Technician]

Anyone have a workflow for this?

this method: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/customize-windows-10-start-screens-by-using-group-policy

fails since the "Start Menu Item" GPO is missing from my store (i've got the administative templates for windows 10 installed, and startmenu.admx is in my GPO store)

It sounded so simple, until the GPO option was missing....

[Kevin Whelan]

working here ok ,you sure your using enterprise version of win10 and restarted to load the mmc plugins if you have just added them, you may just have the wrong versions of the admx ?

[flow in]

i downloaded the windows 10 admx and installed them on my 2012R2 server. Windows enterprise

Do i need to make the GPO on a windows 10 machine and export it to the server, perhaps? I've only used very basic security GPOs before.

[Kevin Whelan]

yeah I'm a bit confused by your question but the whole process is painful

you have to make a local admin account on  win 10 workstation, log on and set the start menu as you want it,log off and then back in again to make sure the settings have stuck then run the powershell cmd to save the xml file to desktop.
then copy the xml file to your server sysvol to where you save scripts like logon etc,
then using the group policy you can push the xml out to apply to OUs

[flow in]

i've got the gpo now  - permissions issue. but the damn thing still isn't working. I'm testing on a remote box though, might have to try a local log in

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[WHS Ict Technician]

you have to make a local admin account on  win 10 workstation, log on and set the start menu as you want it,log off and then back in again to make sure the settings have stuck then run the powershell cmd to save the xml file to desktop.

 

that bit worked fine, xml file looks good

then copy the xml file to your server sysvol to where you save scripts like logon etc,

where exactly? i copied mine to \\DC\SYSVOL\fqdn\Files\startlayout.xml

should it be in Scripts, or are the permissions issues i should worry about? Logged in users can navigate and open the file, so the permissions look ok
 

then using the group policy you can push the xml out to apply to OUs

Ive got it applied to the OU containing the computers, is that correct? security filtering is set to authenticated users and the computers within the OU.

I've been following the technet examples, but they leave out so much vital information, and bombard me with so much irrelevance, on the times when they are even up to date. Is there a better resource?

 

[WHS Ict Technician]

thanks for your help.

I'd put a computer group into an OU, thinking that the GPO would apply to all computers in that group. Turns out that is not a valid method, so i've re-organised my AD. All working now. Thank you for your time

[Kevin Whelan]

sounds like you've had some fun but you will find things will work better with computers in OUs,I apply start menu GPO by user,(actually most settings) rather than computer so students get a standard one and teachers something different but either way is fine
the scripts folder is there with the correct security exactly for that purpose

the whole start menu.xml is not a great system, it restricts a lot of things, doesn't apply to the start menu list or the taskbar at all only the icon layout and is clumsy to update but as others have pointed out before windows 8 and 10 have gone down the apple route and basically abandoned enterprise multiple user desktop controls.
bring back a copyable default user profile, that system was easy and worked without having to fudge a whole lot of registry settings to make it work

[Nathan Mercer]

Check out the updated documentation and new feature for taskbar management, in today’s release of Windows 10, version 1607—also referred to as the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

 

Improved taskbar management, including the ability to add and remove pinned apps from the taskbar as an administrator, while still allowing users to pin/unpin apps and change the order of pinned apps on the taskbar after the enterprise configuration is applied.

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[Kevin Whelan]

funny just read it as you posted,great stuff installing now, damn have to reimage the whole place now to 1607 or do I risk letting WSUS push it out?

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[Kevin Whelan]

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-10/microsoft-finally-delivers-final-fix-wsus-kb3148812-windows-10-anniversary-requirement

[Patrick Dunford]

I think it's in part that MS created the new start menu and taskbar
system from Vista with no public API or interface deliberately in order
to stop software installers from putting their own icons on there and
having the IE icon prominent. We used to have registry hacks to put our
own customised start menu in place for some of our users because there
were no GPOs or anything we could use to set these things up.