Windows 10 Start Menu xml or GPO?

[Koldov]

Ok, bit late to the party..... but trust me, I was trying to avoid coming at all!

 

I missed out 8 (and 8.1), so most of the hoops it seems we are having to jump through to get this deployed in a fit and useable state for little fingers are way beyond me....

 

Things like removing apps before deployment, removing access to the 'Store' and having to make an XML for a tidy start menu.

 

Thanks to @Arthur and his work on the removal of inbuilt apps and such, today I have installed a 'working' copy of Win10 x64 edu (1607 - Anniversary) and most of the rubbish has gone.

 

However, I can't seem to find a way of creating a startmenu xml that accomplishes what I want. I have Googled how to create one and read a lot of threads here (which are already becoming epic reads in themselves), but the sticking point for me is when it says to export it after arranging it how you would like.

 

I don't seem to be able to remove half of what I want, so exporting it seems pointless! Even small things like having the user name at the top and losing the alphabetised listing.

 

For my young students, I would like to remove pretty much everything except Office and Edge (or IE - what's the difference?), possibly paint and somehow a link to their home drive. Currently, I can't see how to remove things like Connect, Contact Support, One Drive (still showing even though disabled), Search (on start menu and taskbar, also removing Task View), Settings, Windows Accessories and obviously all the other Administrative Tools, Ease of Access, Powershell and System' folders (which I can't seem to hide), as there are lots of things in there that the children shouldn't be playing with...

 

So are these start menu layout problems, or are there a few hundred GPO's to tweak?

 

 

Also, if you've read this far (well done), I cannot seem to remove the Office 2016 'Tools' folder, no matter how many times I remove the option (even though I had it set to not install in the first place), so any ideas on that are also welcome before I start a separate thread.

 

Hopefully enough brave souls have done it now to be able to give me the pointers I need, as I'm sick of going round in circles with Google!

 

I wonder how many Microsoft executives sat in a room with 6 and 7 year olds and a fresh Edu version of Win10...? Someone said that they probably don't care enough about the edu market to bother listening to us, but then why bother making an edu version at all?

Edited April 27, 2017 by Koldov

[NB9457]

I'm sure the only thing they did with the Education version, was name it Education!

 

A lot of people on here use Classic Shell for a Windows 7 like Start Menu, deployed via GPO and redirected just like the good ol' days.

 

IIRC to get the XML to work, you can make it on a PC with the tiles how you want, export it, add that to a GPO along with the redirects for the programs and all should be dandy, there's a massive thread on the whole thing somewhere