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Windows 8 start screen customization

Unanswered Windows 8 start screen customization

  • Friday, November 16, 2012 2:12 PM
     
     
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    I am deploying a Windows 8 with MDT 2012 update 1. I also have office 2013 and a few other apps that I install with MDT. I see these apps on the start screen, but only for the administrator account. As soon as another user log on its gone. I need whatever apps installed to be on the start screen for any other user. I have set the copy profile to yes in my unattend.xml but that does not solve the problem. Have anyone used this and know how to get around this problem please?
     

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  • Saturday, November 17, 2012 5:08 PM
     
     
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    Hi,

    Are you having this issue with Windows 8 Core and Professional (non-domain joined)? If the answer is yes, than that's by design. You cannot customize (nor re-arrange the applications) the Start Screen of Windows 8 on these SKU's in the same manner you can do with Windows 8 Professional (domain joined) and Enterprise.

    You only have the option to edit the unattend.xml file that's used to deploy Windows 8, and add up to 6 shortcuts that will be pinned to the Start Screen.

    Important note: You can only pin shortcuts to the Windows 8 Start Screen, that means files with .lnk extension, you if you attempt to point this to a .exe file, it will not work.

    The path where you can configure this inside the unattend.xml is the following:

    Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup | StartTiles | SquareTiles | SquareOrDesktopTile1 through SquareOrDesktopTile6

    In the AppIdOrPath, enter the full file path to the .lnk file extension; for example if you want to pin the remote desktop client, use: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\Remote Desktop Connection.lnk

    The only method that I'm aware of to remove default pinned applications that are included with Windows 8 by default, is to actually remove them using dism.

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