It’s always the simple things that turn out to be more complicated than expected. I was deploying new machines with Windows 11 and needed to automate the process of adding PowerShell 7.4 […]
Updating in-box apps with PowerShell
Move to Windows 11 or write a big check
There are lots of IT admins with lots of different reasons why they don’t like or don’t want to move to Windows 11. But we’re at the point where none of that […]
We need entertainment during ESP…
We’ve all sat and watched the Enrollment Status Page (ESP) during an Autopilot provisioning process — it’s pretty boring overall, showing information that isn’t really useful (e.g. what does “Preparing for mobile […]
Prompt for information during Autopilot with an app
Back in 2022, I did a post about using the MDM terms of use page (which is almost never actually used since Azure AD now has a better solution as part of […]
When does a Windows client sync with Intune?
It seems like a simple question, but a complete answer isn’t necessarily simple. We can start off with the documentation: OK, so about every 8 hours. But it’s different right after you […]
Autopilot topics of the week
It’s been a week of randomness, but at least some of that randomness is interesting. Let’s look at a few goings-on in the world of Windows Autopilot. Yes, you can generate hashes […]
What’s actually in a WIM or ESD file?
It seemed like a simple question: Can you figure out what’s in an ESD file without download the whole file? I’ve been manipulating data like this quite a bit over the past […]
WindowsApps folder getting out of hand?
The whole Windows app (UWP) model is weird: apps are installed per user, but the files for those apps are shared between users. That leads to situations where there are several different versions […]
New enhancements to Get-AutopilotDiagnosticsCommunity
It started off as a simple change: I was annoyed that the “Observed Timeline” in the output from the Get-AutopilotDiagnosticsCommunity (and the older Get-AutopilotDiagnostics script too) had events in the wrong order. For example, […]
Autopilot branding app improvements
Since I had been testing out the UpdateOS script to see how it performed based on the number of CPU cores, I figured I should try the same thing with the Autopilot […]
Installing updates during Autopilot: Windows 11 edition, revisited again
This seems to be a frequent blog topic, with posts going back to 2019: So why bring this up yet again? I blame Gary Block, whose comment on Twitter said that he sees […]
Why does Windows 11 make Start menu layout so hard?
In Windows 10, you had options: You could lock down the full Start menu layout via a GPO or MDM policy, applying an XML file that sets the layout. Or, you could […]
The inner workings of a media creation tool
I thought to myself “I wonder how many people would download and run a random executable” — implicitly trusting what it does. Of course I already knew the answer — I guess […]
“Something went wrong”: An Autopilot + AAD + Intune reliability retrospective
I’m sure it would come as no surprise to anyone that the #1 troubleshooting step when you see an error message is to search for it via Google or whatever other search […]
Simplify the process of generating an AAD bulk enrollment provisioning package
The process is supposed to be fairly easy: Launch Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD), walk through the wizard, specify that you want to join Azure AD, type in your Azure AD […]
The mysterious case of the failed AD domain join
Sometimes I do some weird stuff, but this wasn’t one of those times. All I was trying to do was simple Configuration Manager task sequences to do bare metal deployment of Windows […]
MacOS Ventura: Where have I heard this before…
Apple released a new version of MacOS called Ventura (version 13), and it has generated some heated discussions around a topic that sounds very familiar: The replacement of the venerable System Preferences […]
Is 2023 the year for Windows 11?
I’ve stated in various forums that Windows 11 will be successful, whether you like it or not — eventually. That’s because the cost/benefit analysis shifts greatly as Windows 10 gets closer to […]
Want to see end of life dates for, well, anything?
The Windows 10 and Windows 11 release information pages are useful, and there’s also the Microsoft Lifecycle site (not quite as useful as you have to decipher it), but what if you […]
Prompt for time zone (and maybe other stuff) during Autopilot
In one of my sessions this week at the Workplace Ninja Summit, I included a video that showed how you could modify the OOBE flow to prompt for the time zone that […]
Out of Office Hours 