Windows 10 start Menu Search and other folders.....

[Warwick_Tech]

Hi all,

 

Joining in with windows 10 deployment I'm making good progress with our image - But have a couple of wierd issues;

 

Firstly we can't disable the search function when you start typing on the start menu - Via GPO search functions or stopping services, has anyone achieved this?

 

Also with the redirected start menu we can't get rid of the 'Windows Accessories' 'Windows Powershell' etc folders - Tried deleting them from the two locations with a batch file but with no luck, where are they stored??

 

%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

 

Regards,

[Warwick_Tech]

Todays Update;

 

I've tried to delete the folders with the command

 

RD /S /Q "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Windows Accessories"

 

But CMD prompt claims the directory doesn't exist, but when I browse there with CD I can see it???

[alfatec]

Have you enabled 'Remove common program groups from Start menu' in Group policy. User Configuration, Policies, Administrative templates, Start Menu and Taskbar. Have you disabled Contana?

[Warwick_Tech]

Have you enabled 'Remove common program groups from Start menu' in Group policy. User Configuration, Policies, Administrative templates, Start Menu and Taskbar. Have you disabled Contana?

 

Hi Alfatec, yes common programs are removed and Cortana is disabled - But I may have been pre-emptive saying it was working, I applied a policy to remove Zune Music and now the whole thing has broken; the XML file isn't populating the tiles and some folders on the start menu are unclickable; It seems GPO's in Windows 10 are as fragile as a house of cards....

[alfatec]

No the Group policy works fine it is the Start Menu XML that is normally the issue. Do you still have all the apps installed or did you remove them before you built your image. How did you create your Start Menu XML file?

[Warwick_Tech]

The way I've found to do it is to remove the apps via powershell for all users when the image is built;

 

Get-appxprovisionedpackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –like "*bingnews*"} | remove-appxprovisionedpackage –online

Get-AppxPackage *bingnews* | Remove-AppxPackage

 

I then copy the start menu folders to the %appdata% folder for the user logging on

 

xcopy /s "\\[sERVERSHARE]\Start Menu\Programs" "%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs"

 

And copy the XML file to the local C: drive and force apply through GPO; which was created via a powershell export and pointed to %APPDATA% for all the icons.

 

This, along with the GPO common programs gave me a working start menu with some additional folders (Windows Accessories and search)

Edited February 8, 2017 by Warwick_Tech

[alfatec]

The problem with using the Powershell method of removing the apps is that they will re-install for each user when connected to the internet. This is well documented on Edugeek. Try using this method: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Removing-Built-in-apps-65dc387b?tduid=(2dd0756ece2649958563a3dc19361019)(256380)(2459594)(TnL5HPStwNw-wwzIT6MKFY.Bl9kyo6LqfQ)()

 

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mniehaus/2015/11/23/seeing-extra-apps-turn-them-off/

 

Also I think it is a better option to use folder re-direction for the Start menu and desktop.

[Warwick_Tech]

Thanks for this Alfatec,

 

I'll have a read through of these articles, but the only time an app has re-installed itself is when we apply large updates like the anniversary update, at which point it's quite nice to redploy the script to see if there's any new apps we need (It's a lot easier to uninstall apps then install them)

 

With folder redirection I have played with this idea but could only get the desktop to work, not the start menu - Is there a trick to this I'm missing possibly? I had it pointed to a network share with a 'programs' folder and populated as such but after some trial and error found the script to copy files a lot more reliable (well, it was)

 

I also tried the old mandatory profiles as we used with Windows 7, but this messed up other settings like colour schemes, access to right clicks etc. but did make the start Menu work.....

[Arthur]

I had it pointed to a network share with a 'programs' folder and populated as such but after some trial and error found the script to copy files a lot more reliable (well, it was)

Did you reboot after copying the shortcuts?

[Warwick_Tech]

Hi Arthur,

 

Yes - we run a powershell script that deletes the computer profiles on shutdown so it should be a fresh profile each time -

 

I now have the issues of icons not being clickable(?!) on the start menu....

[CHiLL]

I'm not after removing the search function...I just want to limit it to searching the redirected Start Menu, Desktop and Home Folder. For example, we have shortcuts for Word in both the redirected start menu and desktop, but when I search for 'Word' using Windows 10's start menu search feature...it doesn't find it. This works without issues on Windows 8.1. I've also found that despite we have locked down student access to the likes of administrative tools, I can still search for 'mmc' and bring up various admin tools. Some are blocked on run, like Disk Manager, but some still run, like Task Scheduler.

 

Is there any way that I can limit the search locations?