In my past post about the inner workings of UEFI, I talked about using a UEFI shell to poke around, looking at all the UEFI variables that are defined on a typical […]
Working with UEFI variables from PowerShell
Password-less Azure AD Join can be done
As I was trying out FIDO2 support in Windows 10 (see my blog here), I was disappointed that the one thing that I couldn’t do with the FIDO2 key was to join […]
Inside Windows Autopilot self-deploying mode
In past blog posts, I walked through the user-driven scenarios – both user-driven Azure AD Join and user-driven Hybrid Azure AD Join. Now on to scenario #3, self-deploying mode. In many ways, […]
Forcing an MDM sync from a Windows 10 client
I was reading a blog recently that made me think “there’s got to be a better way” to force an MDM sync from the actual Windows 10 client – the example used […]
Now choose from more language/locale choices for Windows Autopilot self-deploying mode
Several people pointed out in the past when setting up Windows Autopilot self-deploying mode profiles (used for kiosks, digital signs, and shared PCs) in Intune that the list of language and locale […]
Time for another Q&A session
Back in August, I hosted an “OOF Hour” Q&A session and said I would try to schedule one each month. September is rapidly disappearing, so it’s time to get something on the […]
Windows 10 on ARM64
I admit it, I still have flashbacks about Windows RT, the previous version of Windows that ran on ARM processors. (Don’t remember that? Read up on it here.) That was a 32-bit […]
A challenge with Windows Autopilot for existing devices and Windows 10 1903
We implemented the Windows Autopilot for existing devices scenario with Windows 10 1809 to enable an interesting scenario: Using ConfigMgr (or other deployment tools, e.g. MDT) to take an existing Windows 7 […]
Turn your laptop into a portable mainframe
Way before working with Windows, I started off in IT as a database administrator and systems programmer, working on IBM (and later Amdahl) mainframe systems running the MVS operating system, CICS transaction […]
Windows Autopilot known issues in Windows 10 1903
I listed a few issues in a previous blog, which are also reflected in the Autopilot documentation, but there are more issues addressed in later cumulative updates as well. Here’s a full […]
Windows Autopilot device provisioning network traffic, annotated
While I will never be a fan of proxy servers, there is one case where it is useful to use one: When you want to see all the network traffic and the […]
Geeking out with UEFI
Some people may think some of my past posts get into the weeds, exploring the technical depths of Windows Autopilot, Intune, Windows 10, ConfigMgr, etc. But I would say those generally only […]
Sign in to Azure Active Directory with a FIDO2 key
Back in July, Alex Simons announced the public preview of Azure Active Directory’s support for FIDO2 security keys. Even though I have been carrying one of those around with me for several […]
Windows Autopilot high-level scenarios
Time for a little up-leveling (especially after the super-long proxy server post). Based on a recent Twitter conversation, I think it’s worth talking about a couple of higher-level topics. First, what are […]
Windows Autopilot and proxy servers
Did I mention that I dislike proxy servers? I certainly talked a lot about them in this post, but let me go on the record to say I really, really dislike them […]
BitLocker, ESP, and Windows Autopilot: Working in harmony
Let’s say you want to enable BitLocker during a Windows Autopilot user-driven deployment, and you want “maximum security” by changing the default BitLocker encryption settings to instead use XTS-AES 256-bit encryption (instead […]
The Enrollment Status Page phases and steps
Have you ever wondered what actually happens during each phase of the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) and each step within a phase? Or maybe more simply, what exactly is it tracking? If […]
Why does “Preparing your device for mobile management” take longer with Windows 10 1903?
It’s a question that I’ve been asked a number of times, and one that I actually asked myself when doing initial tests with Windows 10 1903. And the answer is interesting – […]
Requiring a network connection for the Windows Autopilot process
If you’ve gone poking around in the available device configuration policies in Intune, you might have seen this one in the “Device Restrictions” category for “Windows 10 and later” devices, in the […]
Trying out the ConfigMgr task sequence debugger
One of the new features in the ConfigMgr 1906 release (and in previous tech preview releases) is the task sequence debugger. See the What’s new documentation that talks about it, and the […]
Out of Office Hours 
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