[1809, ou] Profiles, Profiles, Profiles

[SystemsAd]

So... I know this has been covered in numerous threads of different natures and I have read loads about profiles in Windows 10, but I cannot find a decent way of sorting for my school environment.

 

Currently;

Win 7

Students are mandatory

Most Staff are Roaming some sedentary users are local profiles

Everyone has redirected folders to home drives.

 

Requirements;

Win 10 1809 EDu

Reliable login experience with own customisations

As fast login times as possible

Minimal files left on desktops (if possible)

 

I have ruled out mandatory for Win 10 as I read this is not supported or recommended by many. Roaming profiles are an option for staff, but I fear that profile storage size will mean slow login times for them... Which brings me on to my recent trials of UE-V.

 

I am trying UE-V with local profiles but keep hitting walls. If I login to one machine and make changes to the taskbar (as Microsoft Documentation states to do) I can login to another machine and the change stays.... Great....But if the local profile is deleted from one machine the whole thing becomes unsynced and a complete mess. Local copies of profiles are going to fill my desktops very quickly unless I clear them out, hence this test.

 

What is the answer? Just local profiles with re-directed everything to a home drive?

 

I am getting rather frustrated with Win10 and would welcome any advice. I need to get this ready for this Summer... time is ticking!

 

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 25, 2019 by SystemsAd

[3s-gtech]

I thought mandatory was still supported? It works fine, but it’s certainly not the recommended approach now (UE-V instead?) Roaming isn’t supported, and I’m not a fan. Local works fine. Redirected AppData doesn’t.

[SystemsAd]

I thought mandatory was still supported? It works fine, but it’s certainly not the recommended approach now (UE-V instead?)

 

Ah ok, I could be wrong here. If it works then maybe I should do this for Students. UE-V seems unreliable for me currently.

[3s-gtech]

Been rocking super-mandatory (mandatory with a .man profile, if it's not available the logon doesn't proceed so helps to stop them pulling the network cable) since 2009. I built mine the old hacky, bodgy method of pulling a local profile over from a logon after customising it, changing the permissions on the hive, then banging it in a share. Hasn't given me a single issue on 10 1703.

[SystemsAd]

I built mine the old hacky, bodgy method of pulling a local profile over from a logon after customising it

 

Ha ha - I love this.

 

I'm thinking perhaps this is best for students. What do you do with regards to the start menu? I know that this changed alot after 1709.

[3s-gtech]

I froze development here after deploying 1703 - so I can't comment on changes since. I built a custom wim, stripping out some of the crud apps to clean things up, then redirect the Start Menu and push out a Start layout XML file. As far as I know, these should still work.

[SystemsAd]

Do you have any plans to update the OS?

[Norphy]

Redirected AppData doesn’t.

 

Redirected AppData not working was a bug with 1803. That was fixed, it's now working again. I'm running 1809 and my user profile works with redirected appdata.

[ass17]

No issues here on 1709 with super mandatory profiles [emoji1303]

[3s-gtech]

Redirected AppData not working was a bug with 1803. That was fixed, it's now working again. I'm running 1809 and my user profile works with redirected appdata.

 

Wasn’t fully up on that one, but most of my observation was actually from third party software like Adobe CS (and CC I think) which throws a wobbler, so we moved away from redirecting it and put more into the profile.

[EddyAllen]

Completely done away with Roaming and Mandatory profiles. Just use a local profile instead with UE-V for whatever applications are needed. Seems a lot quicker and a damn sight more reliable as well.

[ass17]

So what is the correct way to install a Windows Store App for 'All logged in users' to use, for example AirServer?

 

I've read about people using fiddler to get the Appx file from the Windows Stor and then using DISM /Add-ProvisionedAppxPackage to install the app for all users. Surely there is an official easier way?

Edited January 28, 2019 by ass17

[EddyAllen]

I personally use LTSC2019 instead of current branch for W10. Then you can re-enable modern apps with a couple of tweaks and then just deploy store apps with the appx file from SCCM which enables it for all users without the need for provisioning.

[SystemsAd]

Ok so, got UE-V working at last and I am adding various templates so we can store more settings. It is very fast and seems to be reliable. The Start menu is the next step. Why is it as soon as I edit the xml i export for the start menu the client (test) PC doesnt use it and I end up with a broken standard start menu on the tile side...

 

Anyone?

 

Thanks.

[free780]

The start menu layout is a dark art it only imports it when the date modified of the xml file changes. All the applications need to be installed on the PC. Also there are some edits required in the XML and the encoding can mess things up.

 

Really if there was the budget.

1:1 local profiles. Shared PCs seem to be heading the way of the dinosaur.

[SystemsAd]

It certainly is a dark art! I've got it working but if I make an edit to add a tile manually the import stops. Take the edited lines out and bingo it works again...

Also the start menu seems to default to the "wide" view, I cannot make it be slimline without manually dragging the black in by hand. I have tried exporting the XML with different widths, but this seems to make no difference to the XML file.

 

I can't seem to find out how to adjust the all programs list either - any suggestions?

 

Thanks everyone for the help so far, I am very appreciative!

[free780]

This is a script I created to force a refresh of the Start menu Layout. Its good for testing. This is when the start layout is set to per-user not per-machine, you need to change.

 

$startlayoutfile to

"HKLM:\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer"

 

The script needs to run in the user context and the users needs modify rights to the xml file. If you put it in %localappdata%\start\layout.xml via GPP the user will have modify access by default.

$time = Get-Date -Format 'G'

# Extract the default Date/Time formatting from the local computer's "Culture" settings, and then create the format to use when parsing the date/time information pull from AD.

$CultureDateTimeFormat = (Get-Culture).DateTimeFormat

$DateFormat = $CultureDateTimeFormat.ShortDatePattern

$TimeFormat = $CultureDateTimeFormat.LongTimePattern

$DateTimeFormat = "$DateFormat $TimeFormat"

$DateTime = [DateTime]::ParseExact($time,$DateTimeFormat,[System.Globalization.DateTimeFormatInfo]::InvariantInfo,[System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles]::None)

 

$startlayoutfile = Get-ItemPropertyValue -Path "HKCU:\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" -Name "StartLayoutFile" -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue'

 

Stop-Process -Name 'RuntimeBroker' -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue' -force -Verbose

Stop-Process -Name 'explorer' -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue' -force -Verbose

Set-ItemProperty -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue' -Path $startlayoutfile -Name "LastWriteTime" -Value $DateTime

Start-Process 'C:\Windows\System32\RuntimeBroker.exe' -ErrorAction 'SilentlyContinue' -Verbose

 

[SystemsAd]

Just playing now - thanks Free780.

[free780]

Many hours spent with the start layout. Getting the xml right and working with the differences between 1607/1709/1809/Server 2016.