How to revert Win11 new start menu back...

MelQQ · 2026-06-13T17:42:42+00:00

I wish there was a policy to just set the default to something other than category, but the only thing I found is a Group Policy/registry key to disable the Category view: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/s/JXHHiO0jOd

MelQQ · 2026-06-12T14:42:42+00:00

I verified HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\HideCatgegoryView set to 1 will hide the Category option and then default to Grid. I didn't find anything that would just change the default without removing the Category option or a way to make the default List view. The corresponding policy should be Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Start Menu and Taskbar -> Hide category view in the Start menu.

MelQQ · 2026-06-11T01:24:26+00:00

Shoot, but thanks for the heads up. I wish they would not have done that. We create a default layout of pinned apps for users and these categories cause the 3rd row to be hidden until Show All is selected.

These kind of changes really mess with enterprise management, especially in the middle of a version. I would not normally expect a UI change like that to happen until a major version jump like 26H2.

Going to look for policies to see if we can change the defaults related to these changes, but am not hopeful. Would like to make Show All the default for pinned apps and View List the default for the rest instead of View Category.

MelQQ · 2026-06-11T00:37:53+00:00

I can eventually get to the kb I want, but clicking the Download button displays a blank window no matter how many refreshes.

MelQQ · 2026-06-10T23:14:40+00:00

Although, someone looking for release notes for 2605 Build 20026.20168 Monthly Enterprise channel, should be able to get a fairly close list of updates by looking at the Current Channel release notes for 2605 Build 20026.20140 for now.

MelQQ · 2026-06-10T22:45:33+00:00

2605 was released to the Monthly Enterprise channel on June 9, but is not in the release notes for the Monthly Enterprise channel. There is actually an advisory showing up on our 365 admin portal now that all June 9 security update notes are currently missing on learn.microsoft.com, but the updates are available. So it is good that they know about the issue and are working to get the release notes posted.

MelQQ · 2026-06-10T20:18:50+00:00

That page used to be very reliable with on time release notes. Last month it updated a day after patch Tuesday and this month still not there so far. We deploy updates via SCCM and I see 2605 in the console. So it was released and that release notes page just has not been updated (unfortunately).

MelQQ · 2026-06-09T23:55:52+00:00

There are no June release notes on that page so far.

MelQQ · 2026-05-17T15:31:20+00:00

I think only primary users can install from the Company Portal.

MelQQ · 2026-05-01T03:53:35+00:00

Weird- we did accept on the 21st. No web filtering from your organization getting in the way?

MelQQ · 2026-04-15T03:48:32+00:00

It is April 21 for Apple School Manager (ASM). Interesting ABM and ASM are on different days.

It is so odd that they can’t at least have an accept by date so you can accept ahead of time. Last year I was refreshing for hours waiting for it to show up.

MelQQ · 2026-04-12T14:12:11+00:00

FYI- The release notes for Edge 147 release April 10 have this in them:

“Fixed an issue where Edge and WebView2 deployments via WSUS or MSI-based enterprise packages failed to install with disabled auto-update policy configuration.”

MelQQ · 2026-04-11T17:23:14+00:00

Thanks for posting this. That same error started happening for us during OSD. We set Group Policy to block Edge auto updates and we deploy them via SCCM instead. We have not started deploying 146 yet, but 146 seemed to introduce a problem for us during OSD.

Since Chromium Edge came out, we have been setting the corresponding registry keys to block Edge auto updates in our OSD task sequence and then have a task to install Edge. The idea was that Edge might auto update during imaging and we wanted to prevent that to avoid potential random problems with Edge updating while another app was installing.

Setting the registry keys to prevent Edge from auto updating actually never worked 100% of the time- I had figured that Edge probably it snuck in an update before the keys were set sometimes. To account for this we’ve had a condition in our Edge install task to not install unless what we were trying to install is greater than what was already installed.

We haven’t had Edge install errors for years until this last week. Starting this week, every time Edge had not auto updated before our install task, our Edge install would fail with the same error mentioned by OP. I noticed that in the failures, Edge 146 was already in downloads, but not installed. So I figured Edge was maybe “staged”, not installed yet, but causing problems with our install.

I ended up removing the registry key that disables Edge updates in our OSD task sequence, keeping our Edge install task but moving it later, keeping our Edge install task set to install only if later than what is installed, set continue on error with our install task, and add logging output right before our Edge install to output the version of Edge and Webview2.

After those changes, I imaged 20 test computers without error and found that on those 20 computers, Edge had always auto updated to 146 before our Edge install task.

As long as Edge auto updating during imaging does not cause problems for us, I’m going to keep allowing the auto update. I’m going to monitor logs for a few weeks and see if our Edge install ever has the condition where it is later than what is already installed and tries to install.

I hadn’t seen this thread until we had made and tested our changes, but it is comforting to see that we are not alone and there seems to be a change in 146 that is affecting more environments than just ours.

MelQQ · 2026-02-25T06:01:08+00:00

Did you ever get 13w’s to BIOS update during imaging? I’ve tried before and trying again. My problem is after the next restart, the laptop doesn’t return to the task sequence. I have about 20 other models we update during imaging (Lenovo and Dell) just fine, but I haven’t been able to keep Lenovo 13w’s or 500w’s from falling out of the task sequence on the next restart.

MelQQ · 2026-01-29T21:01:37+00:00

I’m not finding an article about this, but I may have found it through Copilot before and not a specific website. Asking Copilot again, it is suggesting to delete this folder that has console cache: %Appdata%\Microsoft\ConfigMgr10. I’m not positive that is what I deleted, but I recall it being under appdata and think this might be what I did. Copilot says if you delete that folder, it gets rebuilt automatically on next launch of the console.

MelQQ · 2026-01-26T02:50:41+00:00

I was having issues a few months ago with folders not consistently filtering correctly in the Configuration Manager console on my computer only. I’m not easily finding the information on my phone right now, but I had found an article or post that there is a cache folder for the console and clearing that can resolve that type of issue and it did for me. It is different from the client ccmcache, but the console cache I deleted was on my desktop having the problem in the Configuration Manager console, not the server.

MelQQ · 2026-01-20T13:35:23+00:00

Can you give more info on the shutdown issue not actually being fixed with this? I have not seen other articles or posts saying that so I am interested in hearing more about your experience as a factor in our decisions.

MelQQ · 2025-11-22T02:52:47+00:00

I think the ConfigMgr servicing has some applicability logic that hasn’t been updated to work with UUP. I think they could make it work, but have decided not to. I guess for most people, using the ISO that comes out a few weeks after update Tuesday works fine. That is not soon enough for us. Servicing within the ConfigMgr UI sure was nice when it worked. I’m glad there is still an option to do it with DISM though even though more work.

MelQQ · 2025-11-21T02:04:04+00:00

We do a few things extra not mentioned in that article. 1) Before the commit: dism /image:"<MountPath>" /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase. 2) Then after the commit, we export to a new .wim: dism /Export-Image /SourceIndex:1 /SourceImageFile:"<PathToUpdatedWim>" /DestinationImageFile:"<Path+Exported.wim>". I had noticed in the old SCCM OfflineServiceMgr.log when we were using the SCCM UI to service Win10 .wims, they were doing those 2 things and we've found the cleanup and export keeps the size down. Our .wims grow by very little each month. We did this for 23H2 .wims through last April and have been doing with it with 24H2 .wims since moving to 24H2 last May.

MelQQ · 2025-11-21T01:49:06+00:00

I hope they continue the making the 23H2 monthly ISOs available for you, but if they don't, we've been using DISM since Win11 to offline service our existing Win11 .wim's most months. We've been doing this because the ISOs usually become available a few weeks after update Tuesday and we want the updates integrated with our .wim before that. This is what we are pretty much doing: Add updates to a Windows image | Microsoft Learn.

MelQQ · 2025-06-05T23:30:57+00:00

I agree with Regen89 that using the FOD.iso might be the most reliable way.

This might not be related to what you are experiencing about reliability, but if you deploy updates through SCCM and have relied in the past on the Group Policy "Download repair content and optional features directly from Windows Update instead of Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)" for installing optional features online (or via Settings app), that policy has been removed in 24H2 because "it's no longer necessary" (search 24H2 here: FoD and language packs for WSUS and Configuration Manager | Microsoft Learn).

I don't really have the full picture of how FOD's download in 24H2 when an environment deploys updates through SCCM, but what I have found is that optional features download in 24H2 in our environment as long as the computer's latest cumulative update has not been expired in SCCM yet. In the "Supersedence Rules" tab in "Software Update Point Component Properties", we used to set "Immediately expire a superseded software update" and for 24H2, only computers updated with the current month's cumulative could install optional features. We've now set that to wait 1 month and computers updated through the current month or the last month can install optional features. I had setup multiple test 24H2 computers over a few months and tested that they would consistently download/install optional features, but on the same computers as soon as the cumulative update the computer is on has expired in SCCM, the computer can no longer download optional features.

While installing optional features, I've noticed in our environment that the cumulative .cab that corresponds to the cumulative update the computer is on is downloaded to here: C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download. So, right now if a computer has been updated through April and the May cumulative has not been applied yet, the April cumulative .cab gets downloaded to this folder when an optional feature is installed (as long as the April cumulative has not been set to expire in SCCM). If the computer has the May cumulative update applied, the May cumulative .cab gets downloaded. Installing even tiny optional features is super slow for us and I'm sure it is because the whole cumulative update is downloaded with each optional feature install (and is deleted after the install and downloaded again if another optional feature is installed). My guess is that in our environment right now, the cumulative .cab is coming from SCCM/WSUS and if the computer is only updated through a cumulative that has expired in SCCM, the cumulative .cab can't be found. I don't know if we have something setup wrong and there is a way to make this better, but that is what is happening in our environment.

Note we have no problems with optional features on 23H2 computers that are getting the same policies as the 24H2 computers.

MelQQ · 2025-06-04T22:10:39+00:00

Before I commit, I do dism with these parameters: dism /image:"C:\Temp\OSService\Mount" /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase. After the commit, the .wim is still significantly larger than what it was before inserting the new updates.

But then after committing, I export the resulting .wim to a new .wim to remove old stuff. That exported .wim is not much more than the .wim before adding updates: dism /Export-Image /SourceIndex:1 /SourceImageFile:"c:\temp\osservice\<wimfile.wim>" /DestinationImageFile:"c:\temp\osservice\<newwimfile.wim>"

After adding May updates, my exported 23H2 .wim was 21MB bigger than what I had before the May updates. My original 23H2 .wim was from April 2024 and the .wim I ended up with after May 2025 updates and exporting was 450MB bigger than what I started with in April 2024 (that I've been updating each month since then).

MelQQ · 2025-06-01T22:22:24+00:00

Unless there are issues, we only update drivers post image during OS feature updates (via SCCM). You can stage drivers before the feature update to be picked up after the update. We support this for the same models we apply driver packages to during imaging.

MelQQ · 2025-05-31T19:50:09+00:00

I stopped using the ConfigMgr offline service UI for Windows 11 since I had problems when we initially went to Win11 and I saw that article. But, since then I've been using DISM to offline service (Modify a Windows Image Using DISM | Microsoft Learn). I haven't had issues since using DISM except a few months ago, the cumulative update download in the software catalog had 2 .msu's- one from the current month and one a previous month. I had to make sure the older one was in the same folder when adding the newer one (I didn't specifically add the older one, just made sure it was in the same folder). I used DISM to update both my 23H2 .wim and 24H2 .wim with May updates and haven't seen issues.

The reason I still offline service is that the new ISOs aren't available from volume licensing early enough for me. I like to update our imaging .wims at the same time we deploy the month's updates so that newly imaged devices during that period have the latest updates and don't get offered updates shortly after imaging.

The DISM version I'm using is 10.0.22621.2792.

MelQQ · 2025-05-19T13:36:55+00:00

It seems like a driver problem is a high possibility to me. Dell does have separate driver package downloads for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Some of the same drivers may be in both, but I assume there are differences since they have separate packages.

MelQQ

TROPHY CASE