Miscellaneous

Year in review: Blog posts

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It’s been a fairly busy year for blogging, crossing three different blog platforms.  First there was https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/mniehaus, with two posts in January 2019:

Then, because someone decided it was time to shut down blogs.technet.microsoft.com and blogs.msdn.microsoft.com, everything Windows IT pro-related shifted to https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/bg-p/Windows10Blog, so I started posting some blogs there:

I suspect you’ll continue to see me post occasional announcements to the Tech Community site, but overall it’s not my favorite platform for blogging (for a variety of reasons), so I decided to start blogging here, on https://oofhours.com.  Since you’re reading this, I assume you’ve already found the site and don’t need a full list of posts.  It’s safe to say that my blogging velocity significantly increased starting in July when I started this site, with 71 posts (so far) this year.  If you haven’t signed up to follow the RSS Feed, or subscribed via WordPress, make sure you do that.

Here’s a list of the “Top 10” blog posts for the year:

  1. What happens when you register a device with Windows Autopilot?  This was one of the first posts, and it continues to hold the top spot by number of views (although it’s likely to be soon overtaken by #2).
  2. Run a ConfigMgr task sequence via Windows Autopilot and Intune.  This one is less than a week old, but it’s already jumped to the top of the list.  It’s quite possible it will be #1 by the end of the month.
  3. Inside Windows Autopilot user-driven Hybrid Azure AD Join.  It’s the Windows Autopilot scenario that everyone wanted, but also the one with the most gotcha’s. 
  4. TPM Attestation: What can possibly go wrong?  It’s a thorn in our sides.  Those that have tried to implement self-deploying mode or use white glove (which builds on top of self-deploying mode), you know the joys of TPM attestation, especially with older devices.  Knowing how to troubleshoot is key.
  5. Installing Windows updates during a Windows Autopilot deployment.  We haven’t added this into Windows Autopilot itself yet (to install the latest Windows updates during OOBE), but there’s obviously a demand as indicated by this scripted approach.
  6. Windows Autopilot known issues in Windows 10 1903.  These (and more) have since been posted to the docs, but the blog was a way to get them out faster while we worked on that.
  7. Automatically setting up OneDrive for Business via Intune.  Another of the early posts, describing how to use the (new at the time) Administrative Templates in Intune to configure OneDrive for Business.
  8. Forcing an MDM sync from a Windows 10 client.  A simple way to kick off an MDM sync from a device, without using the Settings app.
  9. A challenge with Windows Autopilot for existing devices and Windows 10 1903.  Yes, we broke it (if you used the ConfigMgr built-in task sequence), but this describes how to fix it.
  10. New Enrollment Status Page option available.  It’s almost a teaser title because it doesn’t say what the option is – mainly because it’s hard to describe in a sentence.

Categories: Miscellaneous