[1709, fcu] Help! Broken Custom Start Menu

[WCARR]

Hi Guys!I have recently started Testing Windows 10 Education to get it ready for Deployment here at work. For the most part things are going well and I haven't run into anything majorly wrong. The only really *expletive* irritating issue is the Custom Start Menu. I have tried to do this numerous times and failed all with a similar result. So I have come here hopefully to try and get a solution to my problem as i'm starting to rip my hair out! Just a bit of background on what I have done, I have created a test Windows 10 1709 machine which has had all the Junk Apps stripped out i.e. Xbox and then installed Office 2016. I have followed the Official Microsoft guide and arrange all the Start Menu Tiles how I want them and exported it using Export-StartLayout -Path .xml. This is the content in the Exported XML file, note I have tried changing DesktopApplicationLinkPath to DesktopApplicationID as Microsoft suggest on their website.

 

 

 

 

I then applied the Custom Start Menu via group policy and targeted User Configuration. This is the start menu I am expecting to see;

 

 

However when I log I an greeted with a Start Menu that has all the Microsoft Office 2016 apps missing. I have tried numerous fixes I have found online but to no avail in fact some of them result in the start menu breaking completely. This is what I am seeing;

 

I honestly can't get it to work for love nor money has anyone got any amazing suggestions?

 

Many Thanks

 

Will

Edited November 10, 2017 by WCARR

[3s-gtech]

They won't show up in the layout if they're not also in the Start Menu; so if you redirect your Start Menu, put the shortcuts in there too. That goes for everything - IE, Office, even things like a link to Documents. You basically have to double them up.

[WCARR]

They won't show up in the layout if they're not also in the Start Menu; so if you redirect your Start Menu, put the shortcuts in there too. That goes for everything - IE, Office, even things like a link to Documents. You basically have to double them up.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I have been and checked and they are in the windows start menu, including Chrome, Adobe Reader etc. is there another location that they should be?

[3s-gtech]

They're not showing in the Start Menu of that screenshot. Is there any redirection or GP in place that's removing them?

[WCARR]

They are indeed being redirected via group policy to a network share but it doesn't seem to be picking it up. What i'm assuming is happening is it's picking up the Default Layout from the Schema as something is broken, would you agree? Could you recommend anything? Thank you for your help by the way it's really appreciated.

[3s-gtech]

Hmm. I've seen many broken Start layouts in my years of testing 10, but Start Menu redirection has been rock solid (better than 7 and 8.1). Check your path, permissions and structure (Programs folder with application sub folders, all users can read, WMI filters etc).

[WCARR]

I think that may be one for Monday morning! I will give it a go and get back to you with my results, thanks again.

[WCARR]

Hmm. I've seen many broken Start layouts in my years of testing 10, but Start Menu redirection has been rock solid (better than 7 and 8.1). Check your path, permissions and structure (Programs folder with application sub folders, all users can read, WMI filters etc).

 

Just a quick one, I have taken off the redirection however the start menu now seems to be pointing to AppData, Roaming. Which is really strange.

[jmak]

Just a quick one, I have taken off the redirection however the start menu now seems to be pointing to AppData, Roaming. Which is really strange.

 

Strange, but true. Wouldn't like to be in the mind of the person who thought of it, but that's the default location in W10 unless you force it to do something else...

[WCARR]

Strange, but true. Wouldn't like to be in the mind of the person who thought of it, but that's the default location in W10 unless you force it to do something else...

As far as I was aware the default was ProgramData> Microsoft> Windows> StartMenu> Programs?

[jmak]

As far as I was aware the default was ProgramData> Microsoft> Windows> StartMenu> Programs?

It's there too...

 

I think it's related to the feature which lets you have some items set for all users and some which the user can customise themselves.

 

It was there in Windows 8 as well.

 

It seems to me like Start Menu is a bit of a dark art.

[WCARR]

Hmm. I've seen many broken Start layouts in my years of testing 10, but Start Menu redirection has been rock solid (better than 7 and 8.1). Check your path, permissions and structure (Programs folder with application sub folders, all users can read, WMI filters etc).

 

*Update*

 

I have checked Permissions and WMI Filters all are fine and as they should be. I have however made a slight bit of progress, I changed the DesktopApplicationID path to *APPDATA* on one of the tiles as a test and it gave me this start menu. No clue where to go from here though. Have you ever encountered this before?

 

Edited November 13, 2017 by WCARR

[mullet_man]

Hi WCARR - welcome to the world of the start layout.

 

I've had some success in manually editing the xml file in notepad and changing the location of the application from "%allusersprofileblahblah%" to "\\fileserver\startmenushare$\word.lnk"

 

Some links you can leave like edge and calculator.

 

Try that and see if it works. Make a copy of your start layout xml before butchering it

[jmak]

*Update*

 

I have checked Permissions and WMI Filters all are fine and as they should be. I have however made a slight bit of progress, I changed the DesktopApplicationID path to *APPDATA* on one of the tiles as a test and it gave me this start menu. No clue where to go from here though. Have you ever encountered this before?

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]46196[/ATTACH]

Those tiles are what I see when the XML contains a tile for an application that's not installed. Usually something in the name gives a clue as to what the application is.

 

Maybe the applications are in a different location to what the XML expects? Or it's a different version that registered differently somehow?

 

Clutching at straws...

Edited November 13, 2017 by jmak