Introduction Update 2022-08-15: Added PowerShell commands to configure a Windows DHCP server for PXE boot. Update 2018-04-28: I’ve added the information in this post to a new one completely re-written for Windows Server 2016 here In a previous post PXE Booting for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit I mentioned that I would talk about how to set up PXE to deal with VLANs. To be honest I forgot all about it until someone on twitter reminded me - many thanks for the reminder!

When deploying Windows 10/11 you might want to remove some of the included Microsoft Store Apps to help speed up the login process, save storage space, bandwidth etc. Important note! A “provisioned app” is an app that is a part of the Windows 10/11 installation and will be available for all users. Otherwise the app is only installed for the currently logged on user. To remove apps for all future users and the currently logged on user, you must remove both types of app.

UPDATE: This post is old and intended as a walk through on how my original script was put together for those wishing to learn PowerShell. For the finished, up-to-date script please check out this post and you can download the script from my TechNet profile. I previously posted a quick and dirty Hyper-V backup script that was very basic but did the job required at the time. I always wanted to revisit it and improve it.

Here’s a quick update on an option I missed in my previous post about how to customise the Start Menu and Taskbar for new Windows 10 1607/1703 installs. Update 2017-05-02: This also works with Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update) The method that I used in my previous post would not be suitable for other environments where you would still want users to have some control over apps that were pinned to the Start Menu.

In my There’s PowerShell In My Marzicraft! post I shared my script that creates a backup of the server and then uses OneDrive to upload it offsite. In this post, I’ll share my script to backup a Minecraft server that’s on shared hosting and therefore I only have limited access to. The server in question has a web admin front end and FTP access. I have no access to the terminal or desktop.

This week I’ve gone pretty deep down the rabbit hole of automating the Start Menu and Taskbar layouts during an MDT Task Sequence. Update 2017-05-02 This also works with Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update) As every device I’m deploying will have the same customisation I wanted to automate it during the build or deploy Task Sequence, rather than applying it via domain Group Policy to reduce limited network bandwidth, keep Group Policy as light as possible and reduce login times as much as possible.

Continuing on from my previous post (Building a Windows 10 1607 Reference Image with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 8443) I’ll be continuing my series of deploying Windows 10 1607 with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit build 8443. In this post we’ll be building a task sequence to deploy the reference image created previously and we’ll also be tackling domain joining, drivers, and post-imaging tasks. Update 02/05/2017: Please note that this post is also relevant to Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update) with a few minor changes, which I’ve posted about here.

Following on from my previous post (Getting Started With Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 8443 and Windows 10 1607), I’ll be continuing my series of deploying Windows 10 with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. Update 2017-05-02: Please note that this post is also relevant to Windows 10 1703 (Creators Update) with a few minor changes, which I’ve posted about here. In this post I’ll be building a task sequence to create a reference image that would be suitable for a real world deployment on new devices or performing a ‘wipe and load’ on existing devices.

I’ve replaced this script with a much more robust script that will backup each VM, including checkpoints/snapshots. You can find that post here. Let’s celebrate the holiday season with a quick PowerShell script to backup a Hyper-V server…or maybe you just need a quick and dirty, belt and braces backup script for your Hyper-V based VMs. It’s a small, quick script leveraging Hyper-V’s PowerShell module and some traditional command line utilities, like robocopy.

Update 2018-04-28: I’ve completely re-written and updated this post with new information for Windows Server 2016 here. When installing PXE (pronounced “pixie”) booting for use with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit there are a few things to consider. There’s not much to installing WDS and configure PXE booting for MDT on a flat network, but if you have a larger network with VLANs there is some additional configuration needed. I’ll be covering the flat network configuration here and will post about the additional configuration needed for a larger network at a later date.