Introduction

A short and sweet blog post to re-kickstart my blogging activities, after a long period focusing on cybersecurity and the increased cybersecurity threat towards organizations. For same reasons, my Windows 11 project has temporarily been on pause.

However, now I’m back working on Windows 11, showing how you can customize the taskbar during OSD (Operating System Deployment) with Configuration Manager using just PowerShell (and no source files).

And yes, we are still leveraging Configuration Manager for regular OSD. This still makes the most sense for our type of business. 🙂

PowerShell

Find the PowerShell script on my GitHub page here: Windows-11/Import-TaskbarLayout.ps1 at main · imabdk/Windows-11 (github.com)

The script is really simple, though the approach I’m using, creates the required XML for your, rather than including it as a source file in ConfigMgr.

Taskbar XML

The generated XML file is tailored for my needs. It replaces the entire taskbar layout and pins explorer, Edge and Outlook as the only shortcuts.

• For more insight on how to customize the XML itself, see this article on MS Docs: Configure and customize Windows 11 taskbar – Configure Windows | Microsoft Docs
• If required to suit your needs, make the relevant changes to the XML section of the PowerShell script

Configuration Manager

Run the script within your Windows 11 OSD task sequence, using the ‘Run PowerShell Script’ step.

For my various customizations (though I try to keep those at an absolute minimum), I’m using a nested task sequence:

When browsing the script in-console, you should have a view similar to below:

Result

As expected, once the device finishes OSD, the taskbar on Windows 11 is trimmed down to the most relevant. From here, the users can pin their own apps as needed.

ENJOY 🙂