Anyone know of an easy way to get rid of a Pinned orphaned app on the Start Menu of Windows 11? "Outlook (New)" was on the system, removed, and even though it was removed with the allusers flag, the app is pinned on the start menu for new users. Clicking on it does nothing, but would like to get rid of it.

Curious on some feedback here. How are you lads handling w11 start menu these days? Citrix WEM has spoiled me rotten and I was curious on other methods where this isn’t an option. I know you can do the json file and xml file way, also the app data bin way. Just curious what everyone else does for extra options.

Anyone notice on Windows 11, after installing the latest Windows Updates on a fresh image, when you click Start, and then click the User icon (to the far left of power), it's acting up now? There's no "Sign out" option and it does nothing on audit mode. Post deployment, when clicking on it, it pulls up some weird "Microsoft Account" thing instead of showing the usual Lock/Sign out options?

Well, after googling all day, and immediately after posting the above, I guess it's a new "feature": https://www.windowslatest.com/2024/07/26/windows-11-24h2-kb5040529-fixes-a-bug-that-causes-safely-remove-usb-option-to-fail/ "As shown in the above option, this new Microsoft account manager in the Start menu also encourages you to add a recovery phone number or email to make sure you don’t lose access to the account. However, it hides options like “sign out” and “switch user” under a new three-dot menu."

With APGM/MDOP being sunsetted in '26, does anyone have any suggestions for GPO change control/audit/sync tools? Saw that Quest has a tool...but we've been twice bitten by tools acquired by Quest that made turns for the worst post acquisition.

Anyone doing some "unsupported" testing of 24H2 on any of the VDI platforms? 🙂 hahaha

Bizarre issue. Have a base image for VDI, using FSLogix with Horizon. New users (provisioned from default user), have all these pinned icons in the start menu for apps that aren't installed on the base image. Where on earth does this come from? There's no start.bin or start2.bin in the default user. These all popped up a month or so ago when one of the windows updates were released I think. How can these be cleared out? Or do I have to deploy a start2.bin for default user? Example: New Outlook shows as pinned, even though it's not installed on the base image. Clicking on it, it tries to install. I'm wondering if this is me being a n00b, or if it was an update, lol.

Anyone know what the difference between "Region" and "Regional Format" is in Windows 10 and how you can handle it? The GPP for Regional Settings seems to set the second of these (Regional Format) but not the first (Region), and I suspect the first setting is affecting some apps......any idea how to set the first one?

Just a heads up to you with the Microsoft Action Pack.... Make sure you renew it before January 2025, as it'll be the last renewal until we're only left with the Cloud Partner pack! And yes, you can get both at the same time!

Has anyone ever found a way to reduce the spacing when using List view in Windows 11's File Explorer? I'm referring to the extra space before the folder. This is awful.

Looks like we have a sign out button again in the Windows Start Menu 🙂

Have any of you seen an issue where network printers are slow to load, causing the default printer to change on a VDI session? Printer drivers injected in to the base image. I've been fighting with one environment where this issue has been occurring non-stop.

Anyone had any unexpected server 2022 -> 2025 upgrades? https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/06/windows_server_2025_surprise/

Ugh, I'm really not having luck this week for some reason.... Now I have an environment where the Windows File Explorer toolbar doesn't work/respond if Outlook is open (using FSLogix). System tray doesn't work either. Close Outlook, and BAM all works.....

Can you still customize the Windows 11 Start Menu using LayoutModification.xml, or has this been changed?

So back to Windows 11, apologies if I am covering old ground here - obviously on Win10 you could remove all the stupid crappy UWP apps by deprovisioning them using PowerShell, and then new users wouldn't see them. But on Win11, even though I have run all the scripts I'm still seeing new users getting crap like XBox in their Start Menu. Has something changed about how you manage these pesky things?

Average new profile size on Windows 11 is now 690MB, up from 122MB on the early versions of Windows 10. Bloat bloat bloat

Anyone have some "Hyper-V" best practices for monitoring that they use? I have "*Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor\CPU Wait Time Per Dispatch"* on my list, but didn't know if someone had a comprehensive list they use.

Seeing a weird issue in File Explorer in W11. Let's say I've got a folder open, and I edit one file. The next day, I reconnect to my desktop and File Explorer is either only showing yesterday's edited file or nothing. I have to hit F5 to see all files in the folder. Anyone else see this?

Anyone else experience issues using File Explorer to copy installer files from a file share to local C drive in Windows 11 24h2? Upgrading from Win11 22h2 to 24h2 causes the files to freeze at "calculating" and then eventually gives an error: 0x8007003b: an unexpected network error occurred (attached screenshot). Doesn't matter which network share or file/folder I try, they all fail. Robocopy fails too (see terminal screenshot below). Win11 22h2, no issues. Win11 22h2 > 23h2, no issues, copy works. Win11 22h2 > 24h2, copy fails.

Anyone have this problem and maybe a solution? The Scheduled Task for Storage Sense exits with error - Microsoft Q&A

Curious, even after removing AppX packages using PowerShell or other methods, I notice in some environments AppX packages like "New Outlook" "Dev Home" and others still load back in, along with other unwanted items. Differences are the AppX packages that are removed, such as "CloudExperienceHost", and other environments disable the Windows Store, and/or disable App updates from the Windows Store. For clarification, is it the disablement of the Windows Store/Windows Store App Updates via GPO stopping these from getting loaded, or is it a different AppX such as "CloudExperienceHost" or "WebExperienceHost" that's causing stuff like New Outlook to load up and install on new user profiles?

don't know if y'all have seen c:\inetpub start popping up on your desktops (i have in my lab and on my main box), but it's mildly infuriating, especially due to the vague "don't delete this" statement by microsoft: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2025-21204 what i haven't seen is what happens when the patch goes on to a box actually running IIS where the inetpub directory has been moved to a more appropriate drive, but it's been a hot minute since i supported/ran that

Anyone ever seen, recently, the Search process becoming "suspended" during a user session, and Start Menu search becomes unusable? It sits under a process tree under "resume", and once you kill "resume", the Start Menu goes back to normal?

Why the heck doesn’t crowdstrike automatically disable defender when you install it?

Has anyone seen borked Windows Update dialogs in Windows Server 2025?

Is anyone doing custom Start menu layouts in Server 2025 yet? If so, how are you creating/applying them? The only thing I seem to be able to find online is using MDM to apply a policy, which won't work for us (needs to be local GPO or something else like WEM).

Curious, has anyone rolled out Windows 10 ESU? I have some clients who purchased it and deployed it using the documentation (the 3 commands, ipk, activation ID, and confirmed good with DLV), however when they go to Windows updates, they are getting warned their OS is end of life.

Start ms-settings:windowsupdate-action used to automatically kick off Windows Update in Server 2019. Does nothing in Server 2025, unfortunately.

Just wanted to check in from the post I did a few up. Has anyone had to deal with ESU and Windows 10 with non-persistent VDI yet? Does anyone know if this is handled via KMS, or does it need to be scripted?