What I am missing if my Win 11 Start Menu looks like this?

S

Sonicmojo

Member
Spend several hours yesterday building out new Win 10 Pro (22H2) and Win 11 Pro (23H2) images.

The Win 10 image is literally perfect when it comes to how the system looks/feels/perfroms, only 14 apps installed, all reg tweaks in perfect harmony.

So I took what I learned from this build, cloned the preset and basically went step by step with the identical settings for my Win 11 Pro image.

All is well - except this:

2023-12-03_07-51-18.png

What is going on? I clearly missed a setting somewhere as I pretty much stripped this to the wood. And I realize these are just "pins" but what do I need to change to ensure this panel is clean and only references apps that are actually installed on this image (Edge, Store, Photos, Calculator, Notepad)

Appreciate any inputs.

Cheers!

Sonic.
 
Sonicmojo said:
Spend several hours yesterday building out new Win 10 Pro (22H2) and Win 11 Pro (23H2) images.

The Win 10 image is literally perfect when it comes to how the system looks/feels/perfroms, only 14 apps installed, all reg tweaks in perfect harmony.

So I took what I learned from this build, cloned the preset and basically went step by step with the identical settings for my Win 11 Pro image.

All is well - except this:

View attachment 10856

What is going on? I clearly missed a setting somewhere as I pretty much stripped this to the wood. And I realize these are just "pins" but what do I need to change to ensure this panel is clean and only references apps that are actually installed on this image (Edge, Store, Photos, Calculator, Notepad)

Appreciate any inputs.

Cheers!

Sonic.
Click to expand...
You must uncheck the Components\System Applications "Content Delivery Manager" box.
 
Spoke too soon - just did a Windows Update on the new test install and as soon as it applied and restarted - all the pinned apps from the first screencap returned. MS is getting nasty with this now.

Any workarounds out there - outside of a login script?

Sonic.
 
garlin said:
You should always do a remove reinstall after applying any Monthly Updates.
Click to expand...
Understood - but that is not viable on machines that are already installed via (NT Lite Custom) ISO.

NT Lite is not on these machines and will never be.

Looks like I need to come up with something to combat this AFTER each monthly WU cycle - or just stay on Windows 10 - which is not affected by this. Seems to only be an issue with 23H2+

S
 
Monthly Updates will restore random components, depending on what MS needs to patch. You can't control it, sometimes your removal is safe for a long time or it gets clobbered in a few months. Other than removing CDM, you have to struggle with the different CDM settings to block content which don't appear to work reliably in later Windows.
 
garlin said:
You can't control it, sometimes your removal is safe for a long time or it gets clobbered in a few months.
Click to expand...
Well - actually I can control it by simply moving to Win 11 ENT which offers a number of different "non-consumer" group policies that will stop this.

My companies Win 11 machine do not display all this crap and it never has come back or been overwritten by Monthly updates.

I was hoping to stay at the Pro level to make this easy but if MS wants to play hardball on that SKU and mess with it every month - I will too and move my imaging up one notch - OR stay with Windows 10.

Haven't quite decided if 11 is worth the trouble but it is looking less likely by the minute here.

S
 
Sonicmojo said:
Spoke too soon - just did a Windows Update on the new test install and as soon as it applied and restarted - all the pinned apps from the first screencap returned. MS is getting nasty with this now.

Any workarounds out there - outside of a login script?

Sonic.
Click to expand...
The icons appear again, but the application is not installed unless you click on it with the left mouse button, then they are installed but if you do so with the right mouse button on the icon it gives you the option to uninstall the icon
 
Errepublika said:
The icons appear again, but the application is not installed unless you click on it with the left mouse button, then they are installed but if you do so with the right mouse button on the icon it gives you the option to uninstall the icon
Click to expand...

Understood - but if I need to "clear" pins every month after WU - that is not going to fly.

Conversely - if I only need to "clear" them once - manually right click each and choose Uninstall - but once (and only once) - that might be tolerable. Will test that out as well.

In related news - I just tested an ENT build this morning and nothing is on the menu to start with:

2023-12-04_06-38-55.png

OR after manually applying updates.

This is probably where I need to be.

S
 
Sonicmojo said:
Understood - but if I need to "clear" pins every month after WU - that is not going to fly.

Conversely - if I only need to "clear" them once - manually right click each and choose Uninstall - but once (and only once) - that might be tolerable. Will test that out as well.

In related news - I just tested an ENT build this morning and nothing is on the menu to start with:

View attachment 10865

OR after manually applying updates.

This is probably where I need to be.

S
Click to expand...
As long as they only appear and the application is not installed, it is only the hassle of removing the icon, at the moment there is no other solution, I continue trying to see if I can find any
 
Errepublika said:
As long as they only appear and the application is not installed, it is only the hassle of removing the icon, at the moment there is no other solution, I continue trying to see if I can find any
Click to expand...

Update: Just reapplied my Win 11 23H2 ENT preset to a new Win 11 23H2 Pro build and after a full WU and several restarts - there are no signs of any "pinned" crap apps or anything else - just this:

2023-12-04_10-42-01.png

Looks like Pro could be a go after all :)

Sonic.
 
Sonicmojo said:
Update: Just reapplied my Win 11 23H2 ENT preset to a new Win 11 23H2 Pro build and after a full WU and several restarts - there are no signs of any "pinned" crap apps or anything else - just this:

View attachment 10875

Looks like Pro could be a go after all :)

Sonic.
Click to expand...
If you have put the last compilation they do not appear but in the next update it may appear again, I am with compilation 22631.2506 and when it is updated to 22631.2715 they appear again
 
Errepublika said:
If you have put the last compilation they do not appear but in the next update it may appear again, I am with compilation 22631.2506 and when it is updated to 22631.2715 they appear again
Click to expand...
My test accounted for this - I specifically did not add any "online" updates to this build and used an original Oct 30 "vanilla" release version of Win 11 23H2 Business (multi-version) ISO direct from MS.

I then applied the full set of available updates (via WU) from Nov 14 (bringing me to Build 22631.2715) and restarted - nothing came back:

2023-12-04_11-56-45.png

SOnic.
 
Sonicmojo said:
My test accounted for this - I specifically did not add any "online" updates to this build and used an original Oct 30 "vanilla" release version of Win 11 23H2 Business (multi-version) ISO direct from MS.

I then applied the full set of available updates (via WU) from Nov 14 (bringing me to Build 22631.2715) and restarted - nothing came back:

View attachment 10876

SOnic.
Click to expand...
compilation 22631.2506 update to and when it is updated to 22631.2715 they appear again, I uninstall them and update to the preview compilation 22631.2787 and only the Apps that I had selected appear, the others do not appear
 
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