Windows 10 Start Menu (yes, really)!

[Koldov]

I haven't looked at this for a long time as I originally set it up and as it worked OK so left it well alone...

 

However, as I just pushed out a new Office version I noticed all the shortcuts were broken (obviously).

 

I didn't think it would take much to sort out, but I changed them in the XML and noticed it pushed everything else out of place for some reason.

 

Anyway I finally got it all back together and tested it out only to find it completely broken!

 

So I took it to the basics and added back section by section and it works up until I put 'This PC' back in, it doesn't seem to matter what I put in there it either won't create the tile or completely breaks it...

 

I'm not sure if the location it references isn't accessible by the users account (I can't check as it's heavily locked down), or if it has changed (%appdata% or %allusersprofile%).

 

I also used to have a tile for the user home drive, but can't remember how that worked either as it also doesn't now...

Edited March 4, 2024 by Koldov

[3s-gtech]

I haven't looked at this for a long time as I originally set it up and as it worked OK so left it well alone...

 

However, as I just pushed out a new Office version I noticed all the shortcuts were broken (obviously).

 

I didn't think it would take much to sort out, but I changed them in the XML and noticed it pushed everything else out of place for some reason.

 

Anyway I finally got it all back together and tested it out only to find it completely broken!

 

So I took it to the basics and added back section by section and it works up until I put 'This PC' back in, it doesn't seem to matter what I put in there it either won't create the tile or completely breaks it...

 

I'm not sure if the location it references isn't accessible by the users account (I can't check as it's heavily locked down), or if it has changed (%appdata% or %allusersprofile%).

 

I also used to have a tile for the user home drive, but can' remember how that worked either as it also doesn't now...

 

I’ll try to remember to give you the bits from ours. I spent a lot of time on it and it’s pretty resilient to updates etc (11 next year won’t be fun though!)

[Olliedawg]

I'll show you my XML for win10 start menu tomorrow morning. Mine has been pretty solid (did it about a year ago) My shortcuts still work from moving from Office 2019 > Office 365.

[Koldov]

Thanks!

 

It's weird really because it's been rock solid for years and I haven't touched it (haven't needed to as we're LTSC and so nothing really changes).

 

So I guess it's really thrown me that just changing the text in the xml from 'Word 2016' to 'Word' with no other changes made it break.

 

From then on I think I just made things worse and then the 'This PC' (not 'File Explorer' because I hate it) breaks the whole thing and the Home Drive tile refuses to display anymore!

[3s-gtech]

Here's our barebones student layout.

 

The Office links work with 2019 and 2021, may work with 365 but not tested.

 

[Olliedawg]

Here's mine, works with 365/2019 shortcuts. Very barebones. I do think the Teams one needs amending to show the "New Teams" however. Other than that its fine.

 

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[Koldov]

Here's our barebones student layout.

 

The Office links work with 2019 and 2021, may work with 365 but not tested.

 

Interesting....

 

You went with DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.WINWORD.EXE.15" /> for the Office programs directly calling the .EXE

 

Is that the bullet proof/accepted best practise now? I understand that 2019/2021 are both '15' so it will only break if you install '16'...

 

We originally went with DesktopApplicationLinkPath="%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Word.lnk"

 

So as long as the shortcut doesn't change its name it works OK (though it did change from 'Word 2016' to 'Word' hence why it broke) but which I guess might be more prone to failure if the shortcuts don't populate there for some reason?

 

All I did was edit the XML to remove the '2016' and it messed up the whole thing!

 

Also interesting is our H:\ drive used the same syntax as yours (though we don't map H:\ to a 'Documents' sub-folder as they have redirected desktop and 'user' folders)... but appears broken. We did move file server recently but they can still access their drive OK, so I guess not a permissions thing (total server move, name and everything so not a mapping issue either).

[3s-gtech]

Best practice? Probably not as generally accepted, but we treat the All Users profile with some caution. Since changing it to this, I’ve had fewer issues, but note that the Start Menu redirected link has to match it otherwise it won’t appear at all. That’s caught me a few times.