Tempo

Morning All, I've been reading about Windows 10 Start Menu and icon deployment and implementing this looks like a pain for many admins. I've been playing with the xml files and group policy and it seems icons disappear from the Start Menu and generally inconsistent. Currently we use a 3rd part shell / application menu on Windows 7. This shell menu displays the icons and we can make icons visible or hide them depending on the teaching room or PC a user works at, but we intend to remove this shell / apps menu when rolling out Windows 10. However I would like to replicate some of it's features. I was wondering if anyone works in a School / Academy / College or environment where there is not only a lot of software, but the icons would only be visible for software installed in certain areas rather than filling the Start Menu or desktop with icons for every available app. We have an OU for each classroom and for example, we would like to make the icons for Geography apps only being available for PCs in Geography and the same with Design Tech, Art etc. I think using multiple StartLayout.xml files for each subject (Geography, Maths etc) might complicate this unless I make commonly used apps such as MS Office, VLC etc available in the Start Menu and maybe place the department specific icons on the desktop using Group Policy Preferences and WMI filters. I have found if I was to pin all of our software to the Start Menu and use one XML file, there are black tiles appearing on the start menu where the software is not installed. I have tested icon deployment with GPP on Windows 7 machines, however I found I had to use loopback processing and a specific icon deployment GPO for each OU / classroom which doesn't simplify things from an admin point of view. I'm guessing smaller schools and the corporate or commercial world might only have a few apps to deploy and could use one XML file to make those available but I'm not sure if the Start Menu is the best way to do this in an environment with a variety of software to deploy. Here are some pics of my attempt at a Start Menu which only worked on one PC I'd be grateful for your thoughts on this.

We have 13 old HP PCs, free to schools / educational establishments. If anyone would like them, please get in touch to organise collection as we will have to dispose of these by Friday 20th March. Ideally we would like them to go as a job lot, maybe useful for your schools or training students in hardware. There are 8x HP 5800s, 3x HP 6000s, 1x HP DX2300 and 1x HP DX2200. They are untested so I cannot guarantee they all work or have operating systems. The 5800s and 6000s have run Win7 and have 2GB RAM. Collection from Northwood, Middlesex