Windows 11 Start menu layout via GPO

[Hoyt]

On 19/08/2025 at 17:54, thimon said:

Why would you want to get rid of it? It’s pretty useful for all users to have access to. If you’ve got your user permissions right, no one should be able to break anything via the settings app. 

 

I can't believe someone actually said that, no offense intended.  I'll try to clean up a phrase we use around here from time to time: "That boy could screw up a free lunch!".

[5nowman]

14 hours ago, Hoyt said:

 

I can't believe someone actually said that, no offense intended.  I'll try to clean up a phrase we use around here from time to time: "That boy could screw up a free lunch!".

Hi,

 

Forgive me for asking. Does this mean you are agreeing with my view to hide everything?

 

Sorry for the silly question! I figured it out though. there is a user and computer policy for this to happen. 

User policy was enough.

 

Have a good day.

 

Kind regards

 

5nowman

 

 

[5nowman]

copying the start2.bin ...

 

has this 100% stopped working?

 

I cannot get it to work! copied it to the right folder but it does not show the icons I put on the tiles.

[thimon]

This broke with the July cumulative update, however the August cumulative update has fixed it. Still working for us. 

[Hoyt]

On 23/08/2025 at 01:13, 5nowman said:

Hi,

 

Forgive me for asking. Does this mean you are agreeing with my view to hide everything?

 

Sorry for the silly question! I figured it out though. there is a user and computer policy for this to happen. 

User policy was enough.

 

Have a good day.

 

Kind regards

 

5nowman

 

 

 

Yes I agree with hiding EVERYTHING that is not absolutely needed for an employee or student to complete their assigned tasks.  One of things that can cause a lot of unnecessary wasting of time is folks getting into stuff they have no reason to monkey with.  If they want to play and explore on a PC they can do it at home on their own time.  If I remember correctly the mindset used to be called the "principle of least required privilege".

[5nowman]

On 28/08/2025 at 15:10, Hoyt said:

 

Yes I agree with hiding EVERYTHING that is not absolutely needed for an employee or student to complete their assigned tasks.  One of things that can cause a lot of unnecessary wasting of time is folks getting into stuff they have no reason to monkey with.  If they want to play and explore on a PC they can do it at home on their own time.  If I remember correctly the mindset used to be called the "principle of least required privilege".

THANK YOU!!!

 

Finally I am happy with what I do.

Empty start menu lol

desktop only has icons based on what is needed by the school. chrome a given.

 

Then you get 1 staff who wants Firefox !!

 

i managed to hide "all" in the end and empty the entire start menu tiles. People can pin word etc off the desktop. The only thing I could not do was remove the "search" on the task bar without it killing search totally.

 

Have a good weekend. Trying to find these sims / sophos issues!

[Hoyt]

On 30/08/2025 at 01:01, 5nowman said:

The only thing I could not do was remove the "search" on the task bar without it killing search totally.

 

Yeah if I remember correctly that setting is in the Computer part of the policy, not the User.  We just killed it completely.  Our end users don't need search, only I.T. uses it so it just inconveniences us, which is OK with the district for sure.  Hopefully once we get going with Intune we can tweak that a bit.  We just have an empty Start Menu with shortcuts on read only redirected Desktops for our users.  Since most U.S. schools have signed on to the Google ecosystem, Chrome is the only browser that is allowed (turn over the infrastructure of education to a bunch of hippies in California - sounds groovy to me).  Since most things are done online through Chrome the only custom shortcuts users would need can be saved in their bookmarks which synchronizes with their logins.

 

One thing that bugs me going forward is the guy that got stuck looking over us techs is completely burnt out by the I.T. director who is an educator; the person has no I.T. knowledge at all.  He is pushing to do away with Active Directory completely and rely solely on Intune.  From what little I understand that is a recipe for things running wild.

 

Do any of y'all have experience using Intune without A.D. and its management capabilities?

[mrbios]

Anyone managed to successfully get new outlook (the UWA app version) as a pinned icon on the taskbar? 

 

I've got the following line for it in my xml:

<taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="Microsoft.OutlookForWindows_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.OutlookforWindows" />

 

However sometimes it pins with a blank icon and works, and on some PCs it pins as a blank icon and doesn't even work. 

 

My entire xml for the taskbar pins for staff:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LayoutModificationTemplate
    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">
  <CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
    <defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
      <taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Windows.Explorer"/>
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationID="MSEdge"/>
        <taskbar:UWA AppUserModelID="Microsoft.OutlookForWindows_8wekyb3d8bbwe!Microsoft.OutlookforWindows" />
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Word.lnk" />
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Excel.lnk" />
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PowerPoint.lnk" />
        <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\SIMS Applications\SIMS .net.LNK" />
      </taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
    </defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
  </CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
</LayoutModificationTemplate>

 

Edited September 5, 2025 by mrbios