Deploying Win 10 Pro with WDS

[mavhc]

The Story so far:

Upgrade Win7 Pro to Win10 Pro with spare drives to activate motherboard digital entitlement.

Download Win10 Pro ISO, install Win 10 ADK, use dism on that to convert .esd to .wim

dism.exe /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:E:\sources\install.esd /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:C:\ExportedWim\install.wim /Compress:max

Add Win10 boot.wim to WDS.

 

GPO to disable Start Menu ads.

 

Now the question is, what's the best way to script removing the other default apps I don't want. I have the list of apps I want to remove to put into a powershell script, but when to run it?

 

I'm thinking they'll be new releases of Win10, so I can just update install.wim every 4 months or so, save having out of date source images that need lots of patches. So I'd rather remove the apps while installing

 

What point in unattend.xml would be best?

[RLR]

The Story so far:

Upgrade Win7 Pro to Win10 Pro with spare drives to activate motherboard digital entitlement.

Download Win10 Pro ISO, install Win 10 ADK, use dism on that to convert .esd to .wim

dism.exe /Export-Image /SourceImageFile:E:\sources\install.esd /SourceIndex:1 /DestinationImageFile:C:\ExportedWim\install.wim /Compress:max

Add Win10 boot.wim to WDS.

 

GPO to disable Start Menu ads.

 

Now the question is, what's the best way to script removing the other default apps I don't want. I have the list of apps I want to remove to put into a powershell script, but when to run it?

 

I'm thinking they'll be new releases of Win10, so I can just update install.wim every 4 months or so, save having out of date source images that need lots of patches. So I'd rather remove the apps while installing

 

What point in unattend.xml would be best?

 

I've been looking at this over the last couple of days. I couldn't get a reliable way of removing the built in apps via the XML but I came across another post on here by @alfatec that posted this:

 

I use slightly different method. I edit the install.wim from the Windows 10 edu 1511 iso and remove the default apps, just leaving photo's and calculator. Then rebuild iso and make bootable DVD. Here is the link:https://gallery.technet.microsoft.co...DBJFGQV46sng)(). Once you build your reference image go to gpedit.msc and follow these instructions to get rid of the Microsoft customer experience apps,

like Candy Crush, Twitter etc. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...turn-them-off/. Now when you sysprep and redploy your image no more annoying apps apart from the ones you want.

 

This worked well for me and I managed to create a bootable windows 10 EDU iso that didn't have the apps installed.

[alfatec]

Good to hear. I think it is the best option of building a good Windows 10 image to work in a school environment.

[mavhc]

Got it working:

 

(the Program Files\Files\Temp this is because I wanted the scripts to work after install too, and have SRP on, which breaks DISM)

 

bat file somewhere on your network where your WDS client can see. This installs .net 3.5 (required for Impero and Zu3d at least):

mkdir "C:\Program Files\Files\Temp"
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /source:"\\server\share\windows 10 files\sources\sxs" /ScratchDir:"C:\Program Files\Files\Temp"

start /b /wait \\server\share\win10\removeAppsOfflineServicing.bat

 

In a folder named win10, 2 files, a list of Modern apps to remove named RemoveApps.txt, (removing the store seems to work so far) eg:

Microsoft.BingFinance_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.BingNews_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.BingSports_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.CommsPhone_1.10.15000.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.ConnectivityStore_1.1509.1.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.Messaging_1.10.22012.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_2015.6306.23501.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection_3.3.9211.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.People_2015.1012.106.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_2015.6308.42271.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.WindowsPhone_2015.1009.10.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.WindowsStore_2015.1013.14.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.XboxApp_2015.930.526.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.ZuneMusic_2019.6.13251.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.ZuneVideo_2019.6.13251.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft.SkypeApp_3.2.1.0_neutral_~_kzf8qxf38zg5c

 

and a second bat file removeAppsOfflineServicing.bat (%~dp0 is the folder the bat file runs from):

@echo off
@Rem Run this script from the same folder that includes install.wim 
cls
set INTEXTFILE=%~dp0\RemoveApps.txt
set REPLACETEXT=dism /online /remove-provisionedappxpackage /packagename:

for /f "tokens=1,* delims=¶" %%A in ( '"type %INTEXTFILE%"') do (
setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET cli=%%A
echo !cli!
SET modified=%REPLACETEXT%!cli!
echo !modified!
start /B /WAIT !modified!
)

 

However adding these 3 lines seems to break something:

dism /scratchdir:"C:\program files\files\temp" /online /Remove-Capability /CapabilityName:App.Flighting.InsiderHub~~~~0.0.1.0
dism /scratchdir:"C:\program files\files\temp" /online /Remove-Capability /CapabilityName:RetailDemo.OfflineContent.Content~~~~0.0.1.0
dism /scratchdir:"C:\program files\files\temp" /online /Remove-Capability /CapabilityName:RetailDemo.OfflineContent.Content~~~en-GB~0.0.1.0

[mavhc]

Forgot to mention I call that script from unattend.xml as so:

 

   
       
           
               
                   2
                   \\server\share\windows10.bat
               
...