jugglerjoe

I unfortunatly have never used ghost or fog to deploy images to machines however have used WDS and MDT a hell load and setup it up fine a couple of times now on server 2008R2 servers. do you know/remember where you get stuck using WDS + PXE Boot? If you really cannot get the PXE boot to work. MDT has a very good media ability built in so just need like a few 16GB-32gb drives. Or however big you need for your image + drivers and everything and your all off.

that is sooo true hahaha xD Me and my boss have said that multiple times xD I also got a friend to make us a little c# program that downloads the daily bing image and then we push that out to our computers for all other student and admin lockscreens so nice not to have to be in the silly 1536 resolution or whatever it is for windows 7 >_<

I never managed to get a stable thing working without the AppsFolderLayout.bin. So congratz on that We have roaming profiles for all here, except on staff laptops which it creates a local user account as they are used anywhere and everywhere. On windows 7 we redirect our start menu however on windows 8 found this limited the users ability to customize their start screen so now just give them a profile as they would have that would be almost identical to home, only thing we dont let them do is change the lockscreen image which we have fun with One of our History rooms is an IT room with lovely pc's in and 24" monitors and is the windows 8 test room, we have the bayeux tapestry going around the classroom and in geography are planning to do some panorama shots spanning like 3pcs each xD

hmmm this seems weird to me SovietRussia. It sounds like you run a mandatory profile / start screen for staff? Also does that mean you dont use the AppsFolderLayout.bin file? If you do not want staff to edit their start screen it might be advantageous to folder redirect their start menu to a place with only read only access for them and keep the GPP copy of the 2 itemdata-ms files?

so is that just an apply once policy? or do you only let users have a certain layout? I use GPP Files to copy to Default Profile on the PC rather than applying on login. This then builds the profile around the 3 *.itemdata-ms files and the default set of programs. I have not tried your way but i was not aware there is a ms data file in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs? I guess you meant the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows ? I copy the 3 itemdata-ms files and then i copy the whole folder of %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs then when something installs now i just have a script to clear up the %PROGRAMDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu location so it only displays what i want. That then sticks a link on the end of the students desktop when they login. That way i find its easier for students to find what they need, and also acts like it would at home.

hmmm I didnt see the GPP for IE10 as a hack because the first thing we done before even installing Windows 8 was update our group policy stores with the ADM Templates from the ISO. and we also use the IEAK anyway and have a comprehensive list of what neeeds to be controlled that is written by my boss. However sometimes have found the branding msi's to be unstable. But i have not tested them or even seen them be created and he didnt know i had done a lot in GP either so probably just getting gay over nothing.... I believe the idea is that your left hand isnt used much when your just generally using your pc so they have made it more ineractive, if you choose to be so your thumb/finger can sit on the windows button ready to do the required shortcut. We have staff laptops for every staff member who we are going to keep as windows 7 but the rest will be windows 8. All out Admin staff will have windows 8. we ran a small training session the other day and they all seemed to really enjoy it and were almost excited. me and my boss were absolutly stunned anyone turned up ahaha. indeed the start screen should be manageable and its highly gay its not done easier. I have to make our fully final start screens for windows 8 next week >_< What is your procedure at the moment for deploying a start screen? I used to use an automated task sequence to do mine but now, i login with an Admin account. Customise the start screen as we see fit (unpinning ABSOLUTLY everything that was there and starting from scratch, this puts a shortcut in the users roaming appdata) after that get up sysprep, boot to audit mode, sign in with built in admin account, copy files from the customised account to the default account, boot up back through the OOBE make a new user account sign into that and see hwo it is then trial and error. I have found you need to copy: - %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs - %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\ All 3 files that start with "Apps" and i believe thats it.

I 100% agree with this. even if you have to do it through scripts or powershell or GP. I dont care but they need to do it one way or another!

I am interested why a hack was needed for this? Do you run WSUS for windows updates on your client computers? IF not i'd recommend this. I used our default WSUS policies for win 7 and it seems to work fine. The idea is not to manage the start screen but to give a default customization. We give our students our base programs that are installed on every pc eg Office 2013 and Live essentials 2012 Movie Maker and Photo Gallery. Then links for their network area, shared drives, desktop and a couple of other links to get on to their google drive and our horrible VLE. They can then customize as they see fit. If you do not want to give student this customization then a mandatory profile can be used. If you use GP to do a file copy of a shortcut needed in a particular profile on a class of pcs then copy to the start menu in %PROGRAMDATA%. This i think is how it seems to work but i have never used mandatory profiles so this may be inaccurate You say that its not suited for a keyboard and mouse however, once you know many of the shortcuts its much quicker to do things than in win 7.

As i have said in my previous posts. Mail me if you want help. I am more then happy to help anyone that needs it Sheridan. but also i dont like people saying that Windows 8 is so bad and horrible when it does work and seeems to on the most part be faster than windows 7. not to say has WAY less trouble with print drivers which i like

wow. I was almost waiting for someone like you. First of all MDT is as small or as big as you like it and is installed on the same server as WDS and is tiny, untill you add in your truckload of drivers. So thats that. IE 10 we have had no problems with as of yet. (except our virus scanner was not allowing java to run, which has now been fixed) In IE 10 you need to set trusted sites, intranet sites using the zone assignment policy or some of them with display messages. We dont have the best funding either but enough for a volume licencing agreement and enough to keep everything running smoothly. Windows 8 in general for students should not bother offering apps as they, 1) are under developed 2) cannot be managed properly As for managing them, import the ADMX/ADM files on to a 2008r2 DC and its all go. Policies work fine and everything is groovy. I have yet not find a way to do something. I would say the only annoying windows 8 change is no custom logon background but i changed our from the purple to nice bright blue which is our schools colour and it seems to have gone down well.

You must be redirecting documents wrong. server 2008 r2 network here and works perfect. even have different appdata folders setup for users depending whether they are on Win 7 or Win 8. If you would like to chat about it pm me. The deal withs appps... GRRR. Right, with regards to normal Windows 8 treat apps as if they are invisible, unless you want a management nightmare. I have had no secess using dism or powershell to actually update an app. I am not going to find it now but there is microsoft documents saying that "Updates have to be user initiated". So if you are wanting apps, wait untill windows 8.1 comes out. There is a group policy that will come out called "Allow store apps to automatically update". If you want windows 8 policies using a 2008 r2 DC just need to update the group policy store. Look it up online youll find lots about updating ADMX/ADM Files. We dont let students have Windows Live ID's. But what it does is give them their internal full domain name = 07dibblesy would be 07dibblesy.. and that pics it up in office and stuff. with SCCM, I do have experience however my boss is against doing it at the moment, would be nice but TBH i managed to make a Task sequence in the MDt to sucessfully upgrade a PC from the windows 7 OS to the windows 8 OS. Most of stuff is MSI. and stuff that isnt is either in MDT Database or as tickboxs to install Any other questions, feel free to ask.

I have the upgrade ready and fullly automated from group policy even have a script to install solus 3 agent/wireless profiles/specialist programs and some random fixes for certain models of PC onto computers i need >_< cant wait for august =] we had a little training thing for people to see windows 8 within our staff 12 came along and all happpiliy got along with it.

I have since christmas working on bits and bobs for deploying windows 8 in september. We already have it rolled out to 1 classroom of 24 pc's under heavy use for 3 months now. Just checked the ammount of users that have signed in and its 506 so far the only support calls ive had to it was someone accidentally done the "CTRL + ALT + Running it side by side windows 7 is actually much harder than just rolling out windows 8 on its own due to Default profiles of win 7 and win 8 not being cross compatible and a few other things. Otherwise the customizing of the start screen was the hardest bit but anyone who really does it from now on can find the info on the web easy enough rather than having to work stuff out for them selves. SIMS / Solus 3 now officially support windows 8 and office 2013 has some nice new features. All in All we are 100% deploying it to all desktop pcs, but staff laptops will be an optional upgrade for them as we cannot be bothered with the hassle