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Sometimes Microsoft makes small changes under the hood and can hardly be tracked unless an issue comes up to flag that changes. The configuration of the Start Menu and Taskbar for Windows 10 has been since the beginning a great challenge for administrators and it doesn’t look that this will change anytime soon.

Microsoft added the following note to the start menu layout modification documentation

Note In Windows 10, version 1703, Export-StartLayout will use DesktopApplicationLinkPath for the .url shortcut. You must change DesktopApplicationLinkPath to DesktopApplicationID and provide the URL.

A simple note, with great implication!

Following our previous posts on Windows 10 Customization and how to modify the taskbar configuration, we will detail how to configure the start menu and taskbar with that latest indication from Microsoft.

Prerequisites

Windows 10 1703 and above

Windows 10 1803 Early test indicate that Windows 10 1803 is no different and this applies to it.

Configure Start Menu Windows 10

Setup a Windows 10 start menu as we would like to have as default

Start a PowerShell command window as administrator

Enter the following command line to export the Start Menu Export-StartLayout -path C:\temp\StartMenu.xml

A StartMenu.xml is generated in the specified directory Application links are using the DesktopApplicationLinkPath

is generated in the specified directory

In Powershell, enter the following command : Get-StartApps



This returns the list of all applications in the Start Menu

Locate the application that uses the DesktopApplicationLinkPath and take note of the AppID

Go back to the XML exported previously and replace the DesktopApplicationLinkPath by the DesktopApplicationID

Once this is completed it can be added to your task sequence like we explain in previous posts.

Important Info If you wish to manage the Taskbar like we explained in our previous post, note that the DesktopApplicationLinkPath must be used as the DesktopApplicationID will not work. If you wish to manage the Taskbar like we explained in our previous post, note that themust be used as thewill not work.

Please don’t shoot the messenger 🙂

More details available on Docs.Microsoft.com

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