I'm testing Windows 8.1 EE with Server 2012 for a school where I need to configure a common layout that users are unable to change. So, I have configured a start layout and exported it via Powershell to the server and it works fine across my various test user ids apart from a couple of things.

If I create tiles on the start screen which point to specific websites such as Scratch, they only work on the user I exported the start layout from - they don't appear on other user start screens under the same GPO. I can get round this by creating a desktop shortcut in the GPO under User Config/Prefs/Win settings/shortcuts. It's a bit crude but it works so if there is a straightforward way of creating tiles that do this I'd prefer that..

The other challenge is getting a documents tile on the start screen. I'm using roaming profiles and folder redirection as pupils could log onto any machine and once again, I can set this up and export the start layout to the server but only the user whose start screen I exported gets the documents folder on their start screen when the GPO is applied. The other users just get a blank space. I guess when I create the tile it's pointing to the specific users folder on the server which other users won't have access to so it needs to pick up the specific username of whoever is logged on...

Any suggestions would be appreciated... Thanks

Hmm...no comments on this so far. Another annoyance is that I can pin a mapped drive to the start screen for my test user but when I export the start screen layout using powershell as above, it only works for the test user, the other users under that policy don't get the tile on the start screen. The mapped drive icon works on the desktop for all the users but not on the start screen. If this is working as designed it's really a lot of use to be honest and I might as well stick with customising the desktop.

Hi,

Please make sure that the .xml file with the Start screen layout must be located on shared network storage that is available to the users computers when they sign in (the users must have Read-only access to the file). If the file is not available at sign-in, the Start screen is not customized during the session, and the user can make changes to the Start screen.

After you use Group Policy to import a customized Start screen layout on a computer or in a domain, you can update the layout simply by replacing the .xml file that is specified in the Start Screen Layout policy settings.

To change the Start screen layout imported by Start Screen Layout policy settings

1. Customize the Start screen on your test computer the way that you want it to look for users.
2. Run the Export-StartLayout cmdlet, with the following format, to export the new Start screen layout to an .xml file that overwrites the original file:

export-startlayout path <path><file name>.xml -as xml

Thats all you need to do. The next time the users sign in to their computers, the GPO will import the new Start screen layout.

Thanks for your reply but it doesn't address my question so perhaps I didn't make things clear. I'm fine with exporting and managing the start screen layouts for multiple users using gpo. My issue is that when I create a new start screen tile such as for a mapped network drive and export the layout that tile only works for the user that I created it on. The gpo to enforce the start screen layout works fine it's just certain types of tile as I mentioned in my previous posts. I'm using 8.1 EE and Server 2012.