Winner

A word of warning - whatever flavour of drive mapper you use for it (paid or free scripts) the mapped drive uses the WebDAV protocol and when it comes to large files... its pants. We map an O: drive for all our students (as well as a default H: drive which is on our file servers), but we have only dabbled with OneDrive mapping for staff so far. We've tried to use it for video recordings lecturers have made. You can tweak the registry to allow file size upload/downloads with WebDAV of a maximum of 4GB. Unfortunately when copying large files Windows Explorer isn't great at displaying progress, so you can start a copy, the progress bar will jump to 99% and then you can wait staring at it for 10 minutes - not great for the end users. Also, OneDrive for Business is very picky about which video formats it supports. Playback can be hit and miss in VLC player from the mapped drive (complains about corrupt files), but will work perfectly if the file is copied back to the H: drive. We have a 1Gb internet connection so it's certainly not a speed issue from our end. By all means have a play with it, and maybe map a drive as a secondary connection, but using it as a home drive might cause you some problems. We're hoping the reintroduction of OneDrive placeholders in the next release of Windows 10 will mean we can do away with the mapped drive.

We settled on these due to the extremely low power draw, coupled with the added flexibility of built in wifi, and of course the small footprint. Costing us approx £250 ex VAT each

We are using Pentium based NUC's as thin clients for our staff. We put 4GB ram and 120GB SSD's in them and load them up with Windows 10 with only the free ThinKiosk software installed. They work great, are cheaper than a dedicated thin client, and can be managed with your existing solution (in our case Configuration Manager).

FYI the Computer Utilisation report in Impero Power Management has been broken in the last few releases. We logged a ticket, but they closed it acknowledging it was a bug and we would be notified when a fix was available. That was months ago...

No, the start menu xml is only applied at first logon. Once a profile is created you can't change the start menu from a new xml without deleting the existing user profile off the machine.

We do it slightly differently. We create a powershell script with the following: $OS = (Get-WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem).OSArchitecture IF ($OS -eq '32-bit'){ Import-StartLayout '\\domain.net\sysvol\domain.net\Policies\{DF4208B9-E75D-492B-9396-3AD61AC45F45}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\Desktop32bit1607.xml' -MountPath C:\} ELSE{ Import-StartLayout '\\domain.net\sysvol\domain.net\Policies\{DF4208B9-E75D-492B-9396-3AD61AC45F45}\Machine\Scripts\Startup\Desktop64bit1607.xml' -MountPath C:\} We can run this in a Configuration Manager deployment task sequence, or as a GPO startup script. To run via GPO copy the XML files into the GPO startup folder along with the powershell script and run as a startup script. The benefit of this method is that users can edit the start menu layout if they wish.

Yes, video can also work well without the grid, we tested this by disabling GPU acceleration in IE and Chrome. You need some of the grunt at the endpoint then to handle the video. We use Pentium NUCs as thin clients which work well in this scenario.

We have a VMware Horizon View system for 450 student PCoIP zero client endpoints. We are currently piloting an RDS solution for staff (Windows 10 VDI desktops hosted on Server 2012 R2 with GRID K1). In our testing I would say video is absolutely fine. Can drop the odd frame in full screen mode (I'm thinking YouTube here) but it is more than acceptable and in some ways better than the PCoIP video playback in our environment as we notice less compression.

Had another go with these updates, I manually installed KB3176936, restarted and the start menu works. I then tried the cumulative update KB3176934 and the start menu broke. Rolled back, installed KB3176936 and then the prior cumulative update (kb3176495). Start Menu broken again. I have managed to find an error in the event log under Applications and Service Logs\Microsoft\Windows\Apps. Event ID 5985: ActivateApplicationForContractByAppIdAsUserWithHost of the app Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy!App for the Windows.Launch contract failed with Install failed. Please contact your software vendor.. Checked to see if permissions had changed under C:\Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy after the update but it doesn't look they have. Hopefully someone at Microsoft is aware of this and it will be fixed in the next update.

I've got this with our 1607 VDI gold master. Image works with initial 1607 build but when I install the latest cumulative updates the start menu breaks. Fortunately I can roll back to an earlier snapshot to get things working again but I'm stuck on the current patch level until Microsoft release an update that doesn't break the start menu.

We have the NUCs supplied with a Windows license, then reimage through ConfigMgr with our EES licenses. Thing is we were coming from a teradici zero client solution for VMware (which is really easy to manage) and had trials of Wyse/10zig/Samsung thin clients with Windows Embedded on. They were a faff to manage and we would still require a VDA license for them. Plus they have a Windows desktop there which you have limited manageability of. We didn't want our users seeing a Windows desktop, then clicking on RDP icons to get to the VM's. Confusion would reign! We also looked at Linux based thin clients but we wanted full remotefx support and compatibility with USB devices. Unfortunately this isn't available with many solutions, and the cost of proprietary thin clients can be in many cases more expensive than the NUC's (Or Atom based mini PC's which also work for this solution and can be had for around £100 including the Windows license). We came to the conclusion that we were better off with full fat Windows stripped down with GPO and the ThinKiosk software which does a lot of the work for you. All personal preference of course, but this was what we ended up with after several months of testing and trial and error.

We are using Intel NUC5PPYH units for the same purpose. They have a pentium processor which has proved to be sufficient for RDP. We buy them with 4GB and a 120GB SSD from Stone Computers. Works out cheaper than dedicated thin clients, which often have lower specs, plus you can avoid extra licensing costs associated with thin clients that don't have a Windows OS installed e.g. VDA We load up Windows 10 Edu 64 bit on them with only the free version of ThinKiosk installed. This software sets up a local account with auto logon that replaces the explorer shell with a customisable window which in our case loads up our RDP webpage for the user to login.

Once you get your modern authentication working correctly you can use group policy preferences to set a registry value that automatically creates an Outlook profile without clicking through the wizard, effectively doing away with prf files. Key Path (for Office 2016, change section in bold to 15.0 for Office 2013):HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Autodiscover Value Name: ZeroConfigExchange Value Type: REG_DWORD Value Data (Decimal): 1

We've just tried Windows 10 Pro insider build 14332 on a 6 year old Core i3 with a 2.5" 7200rpm hard drive. Once joined to the domain first logon is a massive improvement over 1511. The "Preparing your desktop" stage of the logon (after group policy processing) took 14 seconds on this system. This was with all default universal apps removed apart from the calculator and store and using a local profile (Edge, Cortana, and other universal apps that cannot be removed were left enabled i.e. not blocked with AppLocker). On this test system with 1511 the "Preparing your desktop" stage would have taken well over a minute. If only this was going to be released to VLSC in mid-July! I'm guessing it will be more like mid-August until we can get our hands on it.

Yeah, that does make it a bit ambiguous. I've spent lots of time trawling the net for ways to speed up Win10 first login and we're certainly not alone here in complaining about it. There are threads on the Technet forums, spiceworks and many others. Hopefully this article means someone at Microsoft is listening and that this can be improved in all Windows 10 editions.

Sorry, I meant the part about the education focused modern apps. Gives options over and above what can be achieved with LTSB.

Unfortunately no, so your best option to optimise things if you want the modern apps would be to use AppLocker in group policy. Here is my example policy: Here are some instructions to get you going I've just tested logon times with a laptop which has an SSD. I am testing with local profiles at the moment. First logon was 32 seconds. Second logon 12 seconds. I have verbose logging turned on so I can see the profile generation and group policy processes for the first 17 seconds, then a further 15 seconds on "Preparing desktop". I tune the timeout of "Preparing Desktop" with a user group policy preference registry item. If this is the first time a user logs on to Windows 10 I set HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout (DWORD) to 15 seconds (I would rather users stare at this than a black screen until the desktop appears). If a profile already exists on the PC I use GPP item targeting to change this value to 4 seconds. I have also disabled the following services with group policy: And removed the following scheduled tasks with group policy preferences (please note some of these are filtered to only be removed on our VDI stations): OneDrive client also tries to set itself up at every user logon (????) We stop this with a User GPP registry item. Just delete the key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\OneDriveSetup

New features are coming exclusively to the Education edition in the Anniversary Update so IMO this would be the best edition to choose going forward.

Yes, that's a good tip for disabling Cortana functionality, although even then the modern app is installed under C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy

We are using Windows 10 Education. Microsoft are promising new features exclusive to this edition in Anniversary Update and going forward, (see here). In the blog post it mentions they are going to improve first login times, but for now here is how we are optimising logon time. First, we remove all the default apps (bar the Store) with the following powershell command: Get-AppxPackage –AllUsers | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*Microsoft.WindowsStore*”} | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxProvisionedPackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –notlike “*Microsoft.WindowsStore*”} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage –online Certain apps cannot be removed (i.e. Edge, Cortana) so you have two options to further improve login times. Option 1 is to use AppLocker in Group Policy to block the modern apps. This works well, but at each logon the "App Readiness" service will still have a go at setting the apps up at each logon, which delays getting to the desktop. (For those already using this method check the event logs under "Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\AppReadiness" to see evidence of this happening). Here is my example policy: Here are some AppLocker instructions to get you going Option 2 is to disable the "App Readiness" service. When this is disabled Windows wont bother trying to setup any of the modern apps at logon. The Settings app and Cortana will still work, but you sacrifice having Edge. We have decided to go with IE 11 as the default browser for best compatibility with existing systems (online exams, intranet etc.) and also install Google Chrome. We also install Microsoft Calculator Plus as an alternative to the modern app. As an extra tip take a look at the VMware OS Optimisation tool. It's designed for VDI environments (which we also run), but can help you identify services and scheduled tasks that can be disabled on physical PCs in a domain environment to further improve OS performance. Using this I have also disabled the following services with group policy: And removed the following scheduled tasks with group policy preferences (please note some of these are filtered to only be removed on our VDI stations): OneDrive client also tries to set itself up at every user logon (????) We stop this with a User GPP registry item. Just delete the key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\OneDriveSetup I've just tested logon times with a newish laptop which has an SSD. I am testing with local profiles at the moment. First logon was 32 seconds. Second logon 12 seconds. Older hardware is obviously slower, so SSD upgrades are your friend I have verbose logging turned on so I can see the profile generation and group policy processes for the first 17 seconds, then a further 15 seconds on "Preparing desktop". I tune the timeout of "Preparing Desktop" with a user group policy preference registry item. If this is the first time a user logs on to Windows 10 I set HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout (DWORD) to 15 seconds (I would rather users stare at this than a black screen until the desktop appears). If a profile already exists on the PC I use GPP item targeting to change this value to 4 seconds.

We are using Education, Microsoft are promising new features exclusive to this edition in Anniversary Update and going forward, (see here). In the blog post it mentions they are going to improve first login times, but for now we are optimising logon time in two ways. First, we remove all the default apps (bar the Store) with the following powershell command: Get-AppxPackage –AllUsers | where-object {$_.name –notlike “*Microsoft.WindowsStore*”} | Remove-AppxPackage Get-AppxProvisionedPackage –online | where-object {$_.packagename –notlike “*Microsoft.WindowsStore*”} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage –online Certain apps cannot be removed (i.e. Edge, Cortana) so you have two options to further improve login times. Option 1 is to use AppLocker in Group Policy to block the modern apps. This works well, but at each logon the "App Readiness" service will still have a go at setting the apps up at each logon, which delays getting to the desktop. Option 2 is to disable the "App Readiness" service. When this is disabled Windows wont bother trying to setup any of the modern apps at logon. The Settings app and Cortana will still work, but you sacrifice having Edge. We have decided to go with IE 11 as the default browser for best compatibility with existing systems (online exams, intranet etc.) and also install Google Chrome. We also install Microsoft Calculator Plus as an alternative to the modern app. Finally, as an extra tip take a look at the VMware OS Optimisation tool. It's designed for VDI environments (which we also run), but can help you identify services and scheduled tasks that can be disabled on physical PCs in a domain environment to further improve OS performance.

You can re-enable Photo Viewer in Windows 10 Education. First go here to get a reg file that enables it. Best way to deploy this is in Group Policy Preferences so we need to convert the reg file to an xml file that can be copied and pasted into GPP. Easiest way to do this is here. Finally, you can change the default apps in Windows 10 by editing/overwriting c:\windows\system32\OEMDefaultAssociations.xml. I keep the master version of this file in our DC netlogon directory and copy it to PCs with a computer group policy preference. I have included ours below for reference:

Hi Michael, Just testing this and it works great. In your environment have you used AppLocker to block all modern apps without any issues? I'm thinking of the obscure stuff that gets generated in the users appdata\local\packages folder such as parental controls, xbox game callable UI etc.

I'm trying to optimise first logon at the moment, I've found that disabling the App Readiness service can make a big difference BUT you won't get any modern apps including Edge. If you're intending to use IE11 or Chrome as your default browser then it's worth giving it a try.

We use kixtart for our logon scripts, here's the OneDrive extract that you can adapt to whatever scripting language you use, just substitute the bold domain names for your 365 tenancy: :MAIN CLS GOSUB ONEDRIVE EXIT ;********************************************************************* ;******* Map Office 365 SharePoint sites as network drives ****** ;********************************************************************* :ONEDRIVE ;Map OneDrive as network drive $RegPath1 = "##[b]domain[/b]-my.sharepoint.com@@SSL#DavWWWRoot#personal#" + @UserID + "_[b]domain_net[/b]#Documents" $RegPath2 = "##[b]domain[/b]-my.sharepoint.com@@ssl#personal#" + @UserID + "_[b]domain_net[/b]#Documents" ;Map drive using 'Cookie365.exe' ? "Mapping your OneDrive to 'O' drive, please wait... " RUN "%LOGONSERVER%\netlogon\cookie365.exe -s https[b]://domain[/b]-my.sharepoint.com -quiet -homedir -mount O:" ;Change OneDrive label to 'OneDrive' WriteValue("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2\$RegPath1","_LabelFromReg","OneDrive","REG_SZ") WriteValue("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MountPoints2\$RegPath2","_LabelFromReg","OneDrive","REG_SZ") RETURN You will also need to set the startup type for the 'WebClient' service to Automatic. This can be done through Group Policy.