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  • Updated Autopilot Branding package published

    Version 3.1.0 is now available with a variety of fixed based on customer feedback. See the release information for more details: https://github.com/mtniehaus/AutopilotBranding/releases/tag/3.1.0 Note that this version doesn’t use IntuneWinAppUtil.exe directly. Instead, the “makeapp.cmd” batch file will call the “makeapp.ps1” PowerShell script; that script will then use the IntuneWin32App PowerShell module (which automatically downloads IntuneWinAppUtil.exe if…

  • Speaking of APv2…

    Autopilot v2, a.k.a. Autopilot device preparation, was announced on May 22, 2024, it wasn’t really done yet. From the original annoucement (highlight added by me): Not sure about what they consider “soon” but here we are a year later and we’ve seen none of these items. What has happened in this past year? There were…

  • Using .intunewin files outside of Intune

    In my previous post about pre-provisioning, I showed three apps (MDT, Office, and PowerToys) that I was installing as part of a task sequence. What I didn’t show was the details for those apps. Sure, you can always add the same original app source files to SCCM, MDT, or DeployR and install them with the…

  • APv2 and pre-provisioning: We can do that too

    Over a year ago when Autopilot v2 (a.k.a. device preparation) was announced, one of the missing features was pre-provisioning (formerly “white glove provisioning”). Maybe one of these days it will finally emerge. But until then, are there other options? Certainly. First, it’s worth looking at the existing “Autopilot for existing devices” process. Since many orgs…

  • APv2 + HAADJ: Sure, why not

    When Microsoft announced Autopilot v2 (a.k.a. Autopilot device provisioning), they mentioned: Hybrid AD join is no longer recommended for use with Autopilot deployments. Autopilot device preparation profiles do not support Hybrid AD Join, but the existing Autopilot flows that do are still usable.  And if you dare mention it at an event, or on Reddit…

  • An easy trick to get the old Notepad.exe back

    2025-05-30: Added a section at the bottom based on social media chatter. Microsoft has been investing quite a bit of effort into adding new functionality into Notepad, including AI functionality to help you write content. I don’t know who uses Notepad to do that sort of thing, but I’m certainly not that type of person.…

  • BitLocker auto-encrypts more systems with Windows 11 24H2

    The title says it all — well, not quite because the full description is more involved and nuanced. This post on LinkedIn from Sameer Agarwal, an Intune engineer at Microsoft, explains more: With Windows Autopilot, BitLocker automatically encrypts internal drives during the OOB experience – Even though Encryption policy is not deployed (The main reason…

  • New Autopilot Branding package available

    In preparation for an MMSMOA 2025 session where I am talking about the Autopilot Branding package (among other things), I figured it was a good time to look through the feedback, issues, and pull requests and create a new release. The initial 3.0 release was published a couple of weeks ago, and after a couple…

  • What is Windows 11’s new UCPD “feature”?

    I was working on some changes to the Autopilot Branding package and testing them out on Windows 11 24H2 and noticed a problem: One of the registry values I was trying to adjust, to hide the Widget button from the task bar, wasn’t working; it would get an access denied error. Since this is running…

  • What’s really happening on first user logon?

    When you initially sign into Windows, by default you’ll see the “pulsing color” screen as first-time “things” are done in the background: You can disable that “first sign-in animation” via GPO, MDM policy, or equivalent registry entry. I cover that a while back: https://oofhours.com/2020/06/08/make-esp-look-better-by-disabling-fsia/ But other than the extra CPU consumed by the animation (a…

  • Next-generation Autopilot Troubleshooting

    I’ve done a few troubleshooting blog posts over the years, and they are easily the most popular on my site. This one in particular is still going strong (#1 post of all time), almost five years later: Windows Autopilot diagnostics: Digging deeper That post introduced a script called Get-AutopilotDiagnostics.ps1, which is still available on the…

  • Automatically registering Autopilot devices with Intune

    I’ve seen a lot of blog posts about registering devices with Windows Autopilot, either at a command prompt in OOBE (Shift-F10, run PowerShell) or as part of some other automation. Now with Autopilot v2, there are actually two diferent types of registrations to be concerned with too: So, let’s walk through the process needed for…

  • Windows Autopilot v2: Is it faster? It depends…

    Back when Autopilot v2 was announced, and carried over into the documentation, is a claim: [Windows Autopilot device preparation, a.k.a. Autopilot v2] reduces the time IT spends on deploying devices. OK, but what exactly does that mean? How does it reduce the time? I will assume that’s talking about the time per device (since one-time…

  • Upgrading Hyper-V to Windows Server 2025

    I have one big Hyper-V server, currenting running Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, that I use for lots of things (with 12 cores, 272GB RAM, 8TB of disk space). Upgrading it to Windows Server 2025 should be a straight-forward process, right? Insert the media (mounted, downloaded ISO), run SETUP.EXE, do the upgrade. But it took a…

  • Is SCCM failing to create WSUS indexes on your site server?

    TL;DR: SCCM maintenance tasks for WSUS no longer work if you are using WSUS with the Windows Internal Database (WID). When looking at the SCCM wsyncmgr.log, I noticed some SQL exceptions that occurred with each synchronization: It’s easy to see what it’s trying to do: it’s trying to create some indexes to improve the performance…

  • Automatically update PowerShell 7.4 with WSUS or SCCM

    Microsoft enabled automatic updates for PowerShell with the release of PowerShell 7.2; that continues now with PowerShell 7.4. If you’re devices are updated from Windows Update directly and you’ve enabled updates when you installed PowerShell 7, you’re all set. But if you are using WSUS or SCCM, there’s another step that is necessary: you have…

  • Love/hate: Windows imaging and licensing

    I spent a lot of time in the weeds around Windows licensing, but I’d prefer to forget it all. Sadly, that’s usually not an option, especially as I work on Windows imaging technologies. Since it’s been a while since I looked at that stuff, I figured I would start from the beginning to see if…

  • New release of Autopilot Branding available

    I have merged in changes from the community to create a new release on GitHub, which you can find here: https://github.com/mtniehaus/AutopilotBranding/releases/tag/2024-12-27 You can find the release notes on the release itself: Follow the links to the pull requests (#11, #14) for full details. (It’s worth noting that the “remove the Windows Store” item above refers…

  • If your reseller tells you to buy PCs with Windows 11 Enterprise preinstalled, it’s time to find a new reseller

    I could stop there, but I won’t. In any case, let’s review the Windows Enterprise SKU licensing model, straight from the source: Windows 11 Enterprise is licensed as an upgrade license to Windows Pro. But doesn’t that mean you’re paying for Windows 11 twice? Yes. Is there any way to avoid that? Well, you can…

  • Developing on Windows 11 ARM64, one year in

    After a long time working exclusively on Windows devices, I had switched to MacOS on a MacBook Pro a few years ago because that was the practical thing to do while working on cross-platform development based around open-source technologies. The biggest downside: it was an Intel-based Mac, and the battery life when running Edge (for…