Has anyone got the Windows 10 Start Menu working reliably WITHOUT using Classic Shell

[LeMarchand]

Got a load of HP convertibles on Win 10, but I can't get the Start Menu to work as advertised. I don't want to use Classic Shell as I feel that the "official" layout is going to be more representative of what the kids will see elsewhere, and is more "touch friendly".

 

I have an "arranged" Start Menu built into the image, but this doesn't seem to work for if a student logs on (their "All items" menu is also missing most programs). Tried the "export as xml" thing, which again works for non-Students. (Also tried excising a line from the XML that someone claimed might help). Manually altering the xml post export doesn't seem to make any changes anywhere.

 

I've checked through various folders and ensured users have access and looked at GPOs that might be affecting the start menu, but can't find any likely culprits.

 

I'd turn off tablet mode (as the redirected desktop then shows), but this leaves the keyboard and trackpad active, which is no good.

 

Anyone actually got the start menu working?

[FN-GM]

We have it working and has been in place for a year without issue.

 

The layout is reliant on the start menu, so you will need to make sure the icons are in the all programs filder.

 

Are you using redirected start menu? Seems like that could be the root of the issue.

[LeMarchand]

We have it working and has been in place for a year without issue.

 

The layout is reliant on the start menu, so you will need to make sure the icons are in the all programs filder.

 

Are you using redirected start menu? Seems like that could be the root of the issue.

 

No to redirection. Thought it might be that (as we did with W7) but can't find any trace in any of the applied policies.

 

By "All Programs" do you mean C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs ?

[sted]

where is your xml file ive found it worked better (at least under 8.1) if it was on the c drive rather than say \\domain\netlogon

[LeMarchand]

where is your xml file ive found it worked better (at least under 8.1) if it was on the c drive rather than say \\domain\netlogon

 

It's on a share - will try it locally!

[FN-GM]

where is your xml file ive found it worked better (at least under 8.1) if it was on the c drive rather than say \\domain\netlogon

 

We put ours there as well. Stuff like this we always put local so we don't generate unnecessary network traffic.

 

No to redirection. Thought it might be that (as we did with W7) but can't find any trace in any of the applied policies.

 

By "All Programs" do you mean C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs ?

 

Yep

[LeMarchand]

Still no go . At least the "All Apps" menu is now properly populated (this may have been a delayed reaction to my copying and pasting the shortcuts into the test user profile) but the "Pinned Apps" is still blank.

 

Off to another site until Weds, and will revisit this then. Thanks for the pointers, peeps!

[FN-GM]

Clear the profile of your test account and try again now you have sorted the start menu. If the menu isn't right on first login the tiles will never appear.

[KK20]

Yes. I use a redirected desktop (and documents) but not a redirected start menu. I use the GPO with a start menu export, edit as appropriate (UTF-8 only!), add my

 

to the bottom for the taskbar icons, then GPO to apply the XML. I have had no issues doing this. We use Edu1607 & roaming profiles. Our XML is on a shared drive - I have noticed that W10 LOCKS the file open for reading though, this isn't an issue for reading by multiple people but is a problem if you want to edit the file during the day. I suppose a copy from network/use locally would be a much better option.

[LeMarchand]

Clear the profile of your test account and try again now you have sorted the start menu. If the menu isn't right on first login the tiles will never appear.

 

Still no go. I'm going to have to see what GPOs are applying and work out if one of them is messing it up .

 

Yes. I use a redirected desktop (and documents) but not a redirected start menu. I use the GPO with a start menu export, edit as appropriate (UTF-8 only!), add my

 

to the bottom for the taskbar icons, then GPO to apply the XML. I have had no issues doing this. We use Edu1607 & roaming profiles. Our XML is on a shared drive - I have noticed that W10 LOCKS the file open for reading though, this isn't an issue for reading by multiple people but is a problem if you want to edit the file during the day. I suppose a copy from network/use locally would be a much better option.

 

Cheers! It is properly encoded. I have the same redirections, and these work fine. Unfortunately tablet mode obscures the desktop and "standard" mode leaves the keyboard active - not good when the machine is folded to tablet format.

[mullet_man]

I have mine *working* with redirected start menu, but am still running into issue where some machines start menu just refuses to open and the only fix is to reimage. I've not managed to pin point the issue which is annoying.

 

Am wondering if using the all programs might be a better solution, I'll add it to the job list.

[victory2015]

you could try this,

 

been stable for over year now

[free780]

I've had the start menu working with redirection but in 1607 the export start layout command let seems to not support shortcuts on a redirected start menu. So may go to local start menus and either script or gpp any changes

.

[mullet_man]

you could try this,

 

been stable for over year now

 

We don't use roaming profiles here, I forgot to mention that.

[mullet_man]

I've had the start menu working with redirection but in 1607 the export start layout command let seems to not support shortcuts on a redirected start menu. So may go to local start menus and either script or gpp any changes

.

 

I've got it working with 1607, I edited the XML file and changed the file path of the files to point to their start menu location and it does work fine, just that issue with the start menu failing to open on machines every now and then.

[sted]

I have mine *working* with redirected start menu, but am still running into issue where some machines start menu just refuses to open and the only fix is to reimage. I've not managed to pin point the issue which is annoying.

 

Am wondering if using the all programs might be a better solution, I'll add it to the job list.

the only time ive seen no start menu is with applocker but ive never been able to pin it down more than that

[LeMarchand]

Well, I can't get it working (not tried some of the later suggestions yet).

 

However, I found the GPO that was preventing the "baked into the image" Start Menu appearing (which is a set of "Subject" links to the program shortcuts) so I'm calling that a win for now! Will keep trying to do this the "proper" way, but MS don't seem to want to make it easy!

 

Thanks for all the contributions.

[jmak]

Well, I can't get it working (not tried some of the later suggestions yet).

 

However, I found the GPO that was preventing the "baked into the image" Start Menu appearing (which is a set of "Subject" links to the program shortcuts) so I'm calling that a win for now! Will keep trying to do this the "proper" way, but MS don't seem to want to make it easy!

 

Thanks for all the contributions.

Please share 😀

 

I'm struggling with this too...

 

Thanks

[LeMarchand]

Please share 

 

I'm struggling with this too...

 

Thanks

 

I have a folder on a network share full of "subject" category folders (I actually have 2 as we still have 32 bit clients ) which contain shortcuts to the relevant programs copied from the image creation machine, apart from those that run from a network share, which are just copied in. (i.e. Most of the shortcuts point to Program Files/x86 so a screenshot taken from my machine would be fairly useless as I don't have most of the crud installed).

 

 

It's the same folder that I use for the redirected desktop/s. Some of the discussion above suggests that it might be better to copy this folder locally, but when I set it up my thinking was that it would be easier to drop new shortcuts into the one folder on the network rather than copying a revised one across when changes are necessary.

 

I copy shortcuts to the Subject folders into %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and pin these to the Start Menu in my desired order and then create the image using the Copy Profile thing.

 

Anyone who logs onto a machine created from the image should get the Start Menu you set up.

 

I say should, because I fiddled around with my GPOs last night and seem to have broken it for the kids again. Just logged on as a "new to machine" teacher and they got the Start Menu, but could make alterations (which I'm happy with for staff as they also get the full list of programs) but kids are just getting a truncated list of programs and no pinned tiles. I want the kids to get a fixed set of tiles (and possibly all programs listed) and suspect that one of the GPOs controlling this is stopping the set being created. I also suspect that profiles must be "new" to pick up the default, so I'm having to keep deleting "used" ones.

 

Gonna grab some food and revisit, but it does seem to be working (just not for student accounts) so I'd say it's worth a try as you probably don't have the same GPOs in place.

[jmak]

Thanks @LeMarchand

 

That's essentially what I'm doing, with limited success. I just wondered if I might be having a similar issue with a GPO....

[LeMarchand]

Thanks @LeMarchand

 

That's essentially what I'm doing, with limited success. I just wondered if I might be having a similar issue with a GPO....

 

I just removed my "Test Pupil" user from the "Students" group and ran gpupdate /force and the Start Menu returned after a log off, so fairly sure it's a GPO problem. Going to pull a list of what's applied to that logon and a "full" Student one and hopefully there will only be a couple to investigate.

[JackT]

I've had mine running on a mixture of 1511 and 1607 machines for a while now, the startmenu xml is located on the dc on a random share //dc/redirections$/

 

we also have the desktop and start menu as in all apps redirected aswell from a different share on the file server so and have noticed no issues with it since i set it up a while back.

 

We did have an issue where the start menu fails to open but that was linked to old gpos relating back to windows 7 so i've removed most of them and recreated them for windows 10

[Katy]

I've got it working most of the time but varying results. We have:

 

XML files on a share

Redirected start menu containing the shortcuts

Win 10 LTSB Enterprise (1511)

 

Students "don't have" profiles (i.e. it creates a local profile when they log on to a machine, then it gets deleted when it's not been used for over a week) - all the restrictions etc are GPO/registry based.

Student start menus work perfectly, App list is correct and the tiles out of the XML are all there.

 

Staff have roaming profiles, most work but randomly some will show a plain black screen in place of the tiles (but the app list still works). Only fix is to delete the roaming profile (and local cache version) and let windows create them a new one at next logon (sometimes this doesn't work). I would say this affects about 20% of staff logins, so we have just put the most common shortcuts on the desktop as a temporary measure until we have sorted it out.

 

Other staff problems are that clicking the start button just doesn't do anything, again trashing their profile fixes this.

 

The "fix" to the roaming profile start menu problems is to update to the anniversary edition, so I have been testing Win 10 Enterprise Anniversary (1607) and it appears to work (although they removed the "File Explorer" link that was in the LTSB style start menu and you can't get it back via group policy)

 

Putting the XML off the share and onto the C: drive doesn't seem to make any difference. As others have said, once you have logged on with a broken start menu it will never fix itself without a new profile. I actually don't mind the start menu design just wish they had bothered to test it properly before releasing!

[mullet_man]

the only time ive seen no start menu is with applocker but ive never been able to pin it down more than that

 

We use applocker and is this a possible reason why it stops working. Although it's not every machine it's random ones.

[mullet_man]

We did have an issue where the start menu fails to open but that was linked to old gpos relating back to windows 7 so i've removed most of them and recreated them for windows 10

 

Can you remember which GPO's? Be interested if this is what am experiencing here, although like I say it's random and 75% of machines work fine so can't say its definitely a GPO issue.