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robsisk1972
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Mandatory Profile Trumps UEM Start Menu persistence?

In the effort to make logons faster and the Win10 Start menu quicker to launch, I implemented a mandatory profile on Win10 1803.   After implementation, logons were a little faster and the start menu went from taking 30 seconds to launch to launching instantaneously.  Although I like the result of the instantaneous start menu, the user's changes to the start menu is no longer being saved.  If I disable the mandatory profile within AD for a user, the UEM brings back the user start menu changes.     My question is:   Is there a way I can use both the mandatory profile and the UEM and allow user changes to be saved in the start menu? 

Thanks
Rob

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joshuarupp
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Hi MattVico.  I have been experiencing the same problem and came up with a fix for our environment.  This may work for you it may not.

So the first thing that I did was go into the registry on our golden image and change the following service keys' "Start" DWORD value data to 4:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

     OneSyncSvc

     OneSyncSvc_{guid}

     WpnUserService

     WpnUserService_{guid}

These services seemed to be causing the system to hang on to the cloudstore.dat, cloudstore.dat.log1, and cloudstore.dat.log2 during logout and if those files don't get pulled over by UEM on logoff, then a user will not have anything on their start menu when they log back in.  While I was able to start persisting the start menu including programs, accessories, and user pinned start menu tiles, after a certain amount of logoffs i would start losing my start menu every other login.  So what I found were a couple of things.

If you are using the following VMware provided templates: Start Menu, Taskbar, and Windows Explorer, there is one duplicated registry tree and one duplicated registry value that are being pulled for multiple config file.  So that you can see the values that are a part of the VMware provided template, you must highlight the Template, click on Manage, and then click on expand.  You will get the pop up box letting you know that the template's built in definitions and this is okay.  The items that I adjusted are as follows:

IncludedRegistryTree:  HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist

     This is located in both the VMware provided Taskbar and Windows Explorer Config templates.  I commented them out in one of the locations.  It doesn't matter which one.

IncludeIndividualRegistryValues: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\EnableAutoTray

     This is located in both the VMware provided Taskbar and Start Menu Config templates.  I commented them out in one of the locations.  It doesn't matter which one.

If you are using the Windows Explorer template config provided by VMware, try adding the following to exclude the key that tends to cause the Start Menu to fail to show anything every other time.

[ExcludeIndividualRegistryValue]

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\StartMenuInit

Now my start menu will load every single time.   Please let me know if you have any questions or have any ideas to add to what I already put down.  I battled this for a couple of weeks so I understand your frustrations.  Thanks!

PS - I created my image by following the guide from VMware on creating an optimized Windows Image with a few minor adjustments specific to our environment.  I also used mandatory profiles.

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okeedokee
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HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

     OneSyncSvc

     OneSyncSvc_{guid}

     WpnUserService

     WpnUserService_{guid}

What are the names of the DWORD entries?

Thanks

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joshuarupp
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Hi okeedokee,

My apologies.  The DWORD entries that need to have their value data changed are all 'Start'.  I will make sure to update my original post.  Please let me know if you have any other questions.  Thanks!

--

Josh Rupp

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okeedokee
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Thanks!

I disabled those four service starts and made the other three reg changes and our 1083 image with a mandatory profile is looking much better. All start menu changes are saving.

Any pointers on how to configure the initial start menu layout/contents for the mandatory profile?

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jmatz135
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What breaks when you disable these services?  I mean the OneSync service says in the service itself:

This service synchronizes mail, contacts, calendar and various other user data. Mail and other applications dependent on this functionality will not work properly when this service is not running.

The WpnService handles notifications.  I find that if you disable it you get no notification popups.  Do you just accept that in your environment?

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