Deploying Policies to Windows 8.1

[northeast_technician]

Hello I am after some help and advice. We are running server 2008r2 in school and have recently purchased some new laptops which have come with windows 8.1 pro and cant be downgraded to windows 7 so I am stuck with 8.1

 

I am having various issues with gpo's in windows 8.1 is it down to the fact we are running 2008r2 and not 2012. I don't really want to upgrade to 2012 just yet as I cant really stand it if I am honest. but my hand may be forced if there is no other way around it.

 

Also is it possible to send a gpo out to customise the start screen or is it best to put something like classic shell on the machines and set force to desktop on boot.

 

Any advice would be welcomed greatly.

 

Thanks

[3s-gtech]

What issues are you having with the GPOs?

 

You can't customise the Start Screen on 8.1 Pro, only Enterprise.

[Michael]

Trust me, anything can be downgraded. Use the force Luke...

[3s-gtech]

Indeed, as Michael says:

 

Understanding downgrade rights

 

You may have to fiddle around with turning off Secure Boot to do so, but it'll work fine.

[northeast_technician]

ok so I didn't tell the whole truth, I did downgrade but couldn't find working drivers for windows 7

 

the main issues with gpo that I am having

firstly the proxy settings are not always being pulled through.

secondly we run a lot of software direct from the sever and push them out to windows 7 machines through the start menu as windows 8 doesn't have one as such and I don't think classic shell pulls gpo through is my only option to push these direct to desktop?

[Michael]

I presume you've looked in Device Manager, then copied/pasted the Hardware ID string into Google? There's nothing I've found yet (even touchscreen drivers) that won't work running Windows 7. As an OS they're still current and very similar, so most likely share the same driver set.

[northeast_technician]

I will be honest, I didn't I went to the vendor

[3s-gtech]

The base kernel is so similar that most drivers will work straight from the installers, where others can be installed by extracting the components out and using Device Manager. With some interesting challenges excepted, I've managed to move a wide range of machines between XP->7 and 8->7 this way.

 

You will struggle with proxy settings on 8/8.1 machines from a 2008 R2 DC unless you have moved to GPP for proxy settings. If you're trying to use the Internet Explorer Maintenance control in Group Policy this does not work with IE10 or later, and is removed when you install these browsers on your DC. You cannot simply create a GPP to manage IE10+ either on a 2008 R2 DC, but you can modify the IE8/9 GPP to support IE10 and IE11 with a little XML hack.

 

Start Menu redirection works fine in Windows 8 and 8.1, the programs will show in the All Apps list.

[Chuckster]

All drivers are stored in C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository

 

Could you not copy the entire directory and see if Windows 7 will install from it?