ryanjoachim

What are some of the bread-and-butter policies that you apply across your district/department/company? More specifically, what do you change about the default behavior of Windows 10 and its settings? I'm working on our first Windows 10 image in preparation for us migrating slowly from 7 to 10, and I'm finding several things that I want to customize - Start Menu layout is first and foremost, but it's also where I'm having the most trouble. Not in the layout itself, but in trying to hide some of the folders - most specifically those like Windows Powershell, Windows Administrative Tools, and Windows System. I know how to remove the folders, but the problem lies with the search menu - if I remove them from the Start Menu, search still acts like they're there...but nothing happens when you click on the shortcut. It's ugly. Powershell permissions - I know for security sake that we want to keep the execution policy restricted, but I'm finding that it makes writing scripts for manual usage (not via policy) a nightmare. Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts and practices for Windows 10!

Yes, I'm using a VM to handle all the configurations and application installs. My issue seems to be a problem right after the sysprep - on the first reboot I'm given a "Windows failed to start" error referring to a missing driver.

Any tips for creating a "golden" Windows 7 Enterprise image? I keep getting stuck on different driver issues (Dell shop), so I think that's one place I'm not quite understanding how to best work with it. Drivers and the task sequences are something I really need to read up on.

Unfortunately SCCM isn't an option for me (just too much money for the size of our operation). It's going well so far, except for actually deploying a test image. It deploys, but then the machine reboots into an error screen referring to "iastor.sys" being missing. I just manually added the iastor drivers and rebuilt the WinPE wims, so we'll see if that helps.

How do you handle drivers for different systems? Where do you get your driver packs (if you go that route)?

Hey all - I'm in the progress of testing out WDS/MDT as a replacement for SmartDeploy as our imaging solution. I've seen lots of tips and tricks suggesting installing stock Windows (whichever version you want) onto VMWare/HyperV and setting it up how you want it. Then using WDS to sysprep and create an image out of it. Is this the method you've found that works best? Any tricks you've used to make your life easier with WDS/MDT? Thanks! Ryan J.