Windows 10
Disable Network Discovery in Windows 10/11
· β˜• 4 min read
Fully disabling Network Discovery in Windows 10 using Group Policy To properly disable Network Discovery in Windows 10 in a way that the user cannot easily re-enable we must create some firewall rules and prevent some services from running on start-up. We can do both things using Group Policy. Firewall Rules Create a new Group Policy or use an existing one that takes effect on computer objects. Go to Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

Start Menu and Taskbar Customisation
· β˜• 3 min read
For Windows 11 please check out this post It’s been a long while since I last posted about how to customise the Windows 10 Start Menu and Taskbar for new users when deploying images, so it’s time to fix that! The first thing we need to do is setup what we want our Start Menu to look like and export it. Log on to a Windows 10 machine that has all of the software you want to be pinned on the Start Menu layout and customise the Start Menu as you want it.

Deploy Windows 10 20H2 Reference Image
· β˜• 14 min read
News and Updates An update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released: This update fixes a boot loop issue. Details on how to install it are on Michael Niehaus' blog post here. and you can download the fix here. Installation instructions will also be in the walkthrough below. NOTE: If you have existing shares you will need to copy the files from the extracted update to %DeployRoot%\Tools and overwrite the existing files in all shares.

Build and Capture Windows 10 20H2 Reference Image
· β˜• 10 min read
News and Updates An update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released: This update fixes a boot loop issue. Details on how to install it are on Michael Niehaus' blog post here. and you can download the fix here. Installation instructions will also be in the walkthrough below. NOTE: If you have existing shares you will need to copy the files from the extracted update to %DeployRoot%\Tools and overwrite the existing files in all shares.

Deploy Windows 10 2004 (20H1) Reference Image
· β˜• 14 min read
News and Updates An essential update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released: This update fixes two issues around booting. Details on how to install it are on Michael Niehaus' blog post here. and you can download the fix here. I will add installation instructions in the walkthrough below. NOTE: If you have existing shares you will need to copy the files from the extracted update to %DeployRoot%\Tools and overwrite the existing files in all shares.

Build and Capture Windows 10 2004 (20H1) Reference Image
· β˜• 10 min read
News and Updates An essential update for Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT_KB4564442) has been released: This update fixes two issues around booting. Details on how to install it are on Michael Niehaus' blog post here. and you can download the fix here. I will add installation instructions in the walkthrough below. NOTE: If you have existing shares you will need to copy the files from the extracted update to %DeployRoot%\Tools and overwrite the existing files in all shares.

Internet Access Control Utility
· β˜• 2 min read
Control Internet access with Windows Firewall Internet Access Control Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the ‘issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements It requires Windows Firewall to be active. The utility requires at least PowerShell 5.0. This utility has been tested on Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Remove Win10 Apps Utility - Update 20.03.13
· β˜• 1 min read
Customisable Windows 10 app removal utility I’ve refactored my old Remove UWP script and renamed it to bring it in line with my recent utility updates. Version 20.03.13 β€˜Cool’ Refactored code. Backwards compatible. Added logging. Added config report when ran. Added ASCII banner art when run in the console. Added option to disable the ASCII banner art. Remove Win10 Apps Utility can also be downloaded from: The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery GitHub See the full documentation available here.

Windows 10: 5 Years Later
· β˜• 11 min read
Windows 10 is five years old this year. In ‘old world’ terms, it would be about time for a brand-new release around summer/autumn time but alas, this is no longer the case with the software-as-a-service model. With this year being such a milestone for Windows 10 and with the end of life of Windows 7 – Microsoft’s most popular OS in recent times, I thought it would be good to take a look back and review Windows 10’s progress these past few years.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit for the Enthusiast, Home or Small Business
· β˜• 9 min read
This article is directed towards enthusiasts, IT professional’s for small businesses, or anyone who wants to create custom images and doesn’t have volume licensing, an Active Directory domain, or a lot of server infrastructure. I hope this article is useful to you, if it is please consider supporting my work with PayPal. In this walkthrough we’re going to cover: Installing Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and its dependencies on Windows 10 Home/Pro Edition.

Remove MS Store Apps Utility
· β˜• 6 min read
Customisable Windows 10/11 Microsoft Store App removal utility, previously known as Remove-Win10-Apps Remove MS Store Apps Utility is available from: GitHub The Microsoft PowerShell Gallery Please consider supporting my work: Support with a one-time donation using PayPal. Please report any problems via the β€˜issues’ tab on GitHub. Thanks -Mike Features and Requirements Remove specified apps for the current logged on user. Remove specified apps from the system for all users.

Installing Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and Deploying Windows 10 - From Scratch!
· β˜• 16 min read
If you’ve read my other posts you’ll know that usually I make a post focusing on building a reference image and then another post on deploying that image. This post is very similar but I’m going to streamline things by just covering the installation of MDT, and deploying Windows 10 1909. I have also recently published a video walkthrough covering this. What you’ll need: A server to host the MDT share.

Resurrecting the Windows Photo Viewer
· β˜• 2 min read
I’ve avoided posting about this for a while mostly because I thought Windows Photo Viewer would get removed. But it’s still there in Windows 10 1909 and it’s still good - even though it doesn’t play animated GIFs and hasn’t been updated since the time of Windows 7. Here’s how to enable it in Windows 10. Enable Windows Photo Viewer To enable Windows Photo Viewer so it shows up as an option to open image file types with, copy and paste the text below as is into a new text file and save it with a “.