Windows 10 LTSC 2019 1809 Start menu?

[artfulmatt]

Hi all,

 

So I've got the mandatory profile as I need it and its removed on logoff which is great. Last thing I cannot work out is the start menu? Initially all I had logged in as a student was the start menu with no tiles, which was fine. But after a sysprep all I get is search and settings in the start menu? No other programs?

 

I can browse %userprofile%/appdata/roaming/microsoft/windows/start menu/programs/ and everything is listed, just not shown in the menu? No tiles either although have a GPO pointing to the xml file?

 

Anyone got this working stable?

 

Thanks,

 

Matt.

[chazzy2501]

being daft but does LTSC have the enterprise features? I couldn't get direct access to work, so I assumed it did not. Custom start would be another feature.

[artfulmatt]

This is not a custom start, although custom tiles would be nice. Its literally the default start menu with office and other applications installed.

[Arthur]

being daft but does LTSC have the enterprise features?

LTSC has 'enterprise' in its name (Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019) so it should do.

 

[Arthur]

No tiles either

Have you tried copying the shortcuts to the "All Users" start menu (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs)?

 

Is your XML file valid?

[artfulmatt]

Have you tried copying the shortcuts to the "All Users" start menu (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs)?

 

Is your XML file valid?

 

Check XML and its valid, had ran via the powershell command. Also checked All users and the programs are listed? Can't figure out why the start menu is blank other than settings and search, and the tiles don't show (although not overly bothered by that at the moment)

[Arthur]

Can't figure out why the start menu is blank other than settings and search, and the tiles don't show (although not overly bothered by that at the moment)

If your XML file contains DesktopApplicationLinkPath you may want to change it to DesktopApplicationID. More details below...

 

www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/196937-windows-10-start-menu-how-everyone-else-doing-2.html#post1708340

[artfulmatt]

If your XML file contains DesktopApplicationLinkPath you may want to change it to DesktopApplicationID. More details below...

 

www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/196937-windows-10-start-menu-how-everyone-else-doing-2.html#post1708340

 

Yep read that on Friday and tested :-

 

Path within XML is DesktopApplicationID="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Avid\Sibelius\Sibelius.exe"

[Arthur]

Path within XML is

DesktopApplicationID="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Avid\Sibelius\Sibelius.[color="#FF0000"]exe[/color]"

Shouldn't the .exe be .lnk?

 

DesktopApplicationID="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Avid\Sibelius\Sibelius.[color="#FF0000"]lnk[/color]"

[artfulmatt]

Well spotted - changed, still the same?

 

[Arthur]

Well spotted - changed, still the same?

Are you able to post your XML?

[artfulmatt]

[artfulmatt]

That's just a test to get one tile to display.

[Arthur]

I've made a few changes to your XML. Make sure you save it with UTF8 encoding (you can do this easily in Notepad++ or VS Code).

 

	xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification"
xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout"
xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"
xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout"
Version="1">

   
       
           
               
                   
               
           
       
   

 

Does it make any difference?

[artfulmatt]

Thanks, but no change?

[Arthur]

Thanks, but no change?

That's strange. My XML is pretty much the same as yours (only with more programs in it).

 

Where is your Start Menu layout file saved? Locally on the C:\ drive or a network share? If the latter, can Windows access it when no one is logged in?

[artfulmatt]

Tried both locally and via a share? the share is set to everyone as read?

[Lister]

Would this be of help?

 

 

Both that reddit user and the origional technet user mention they had problems with KB4467682 causing non-provisioned apps to not show up in the start menu when they have that update installed.

[_techie_]

Hi.

Having been playing around with LTSC 2019 1809 in the last few weeks, I have come across a few issues.

 

You need to create a specific StartLayout.xml new file based upon LTSC 2019 1809.

 

The startlayout.xml file assigned via Group Policy will probably contain %ALLUSERSPROFILE% paths. The shortcut files (*.lnk) need to be in this location, as well as in any redirected desktop location if this differs from C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\StartMenu\Programs... and you have the GPO: Remove Common Program Groups from the Start Menu is enabled.

 

If your using default network profiles, or mandatory profiles, any start menu customisations are forgotten. You need to specify the Start Layout file is readable by users (mine xml files are located in NETLOGON, on the domain controllers).

Anything else, just ask, and I will test for you.

Cheers

Mark

[timbo343]

Tried both locally and via a share? the share is set to everyone as read?

 

We are seeing the same result - basically what's happening with us (for roaming profiles anyway) is we give a user a new profile at "\\share\profiles\..\..\ %username%" in AD. The profile populates on the server and the start menu (LTSC2019 newly created) works as it should. We log the user off and back on also with a restart - the startmenu works fine.

 

As soon as we delete the local profile off the machine (including deleting the reg profile location too), reboot the machine and log in with the user, the start menu only shows Settings, Search, Windows Security. Logging off writes the profile back to the Profile Share location. If we were to log back in, we get the left hand side of the start menu, but not the tiles.

 

UPDATE: LTSC is now working with Mandatory and roaming profiles here with our custom start menu!! What a morning!!

Edited January 23, 2019 by timbo343

[Konjuro]

We are seeing the same result - basically what's happening with us (for roaming profiles anyway) is we give a user a new profile at "\\share\profiles\..\..\ %username%" in AD. The profile populates on the server and the start menu (LTSC2019 newly created) works as it should. We log the user off and back on also with a restart - the startmenu works fine.

 

As soon as we delete the local profile off the machine (including deleting the reg profile location too), reboot the machine and log in with the user, the start menu only shows Settings, Search, Windows Security. Logging off writes the profile back to the Profile Share location. If we were to log back in, we get the left hand side of the start menu, but not the tiles.

 

UPDATE: LTSC is now working with Mandatory and roaming profiles here with our custom start menu!! What a morning!!

 

Could you please let us know how you were able to solve this? It's the exact issue I'm having with LTSC 2019 and 1809, and it's driving me crazy. Enabling the Remove Common Program Groups from the Start Menu Group Policy mentioned in this thread caused the entries that start with S and W to persist, but the rest of the start menu is still disappears if there is no cached profile on the system.

[tmleafs]

We are seeing the same result - basically what's happening with us (for roaming profiles anyway) is we give a user a new profile at "\\share\profiles\..\..\ %username%" in AD. The profile populates on the server and the start menu (LTSC2019 newly created) works as it should. We log the user off and back on also with a restart - the startmenu works fine.

 

As soon as we delete the local profile off the machine (including deleting the reg profile location too), reboot the machine and log in with the user, the start menu only shows Settings, Search, Windows Security. Logging off writes the profile back to the Profile Share location. If we were to log back in, we get the left hand side of the start menu, but not the tiles.

 

UPDATE: LTSC is now working with Mandatory and roaming profiles here with our custom start menu!! What a morning!!

 

Could you post what you did to fix this please

[Konjuro]

Could you post what you did to fix this please

Sorry, I forgot to post back here after another user PMed me with a solution.

 

Basically there are 2 directories in local appdata that are required for the Start Menu in 1809\LTSC 2019:

 

\appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Cloudstore

\Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Cache

In my case I had \Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\* excluded from roaming. I modified the ExcludeProfileDirs registry value in my GPO to allow all of \Local\Microsoft\Windows\ to roam.

[Ironitwiz]

Can you please post the contents of key ExcludeProfileDirs

[LRSFC_DanJ]

If your XML file contains DesktopApplicationLinkPath you may want to change it to DesktopApplicationID. More details below...

 

www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/196937-windows-10-start-menu-how-everyone-else-doing-2.html#post1708340

 

Does DesktopApplicationID still work on 1607, or do we need to have separate XML files for 1607 and 1809?

 

Also, does anyone have any ideas why in 1809 we might be seeing three broken tiles coming up when we don't have any tiles configured? Looking at them they seem to be Edge (which I didn't think was in LTSC?), Contact Support and Insider Hub, but they appear as strings like "P~Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft".