Windows Startmenu Creator Tool

Creating startmenues for Windows could be a complex task as it requires us to export and customize an XML-file to get it right. It get’s even more complex if we want to customize the taskbar as well.

This is where the Windows Startmenu Creator Tool comes to play. The tool will help us export the XML from a reference device and will ease the taskbar customization process by a lot… it will even connect to MEM, upload the XML and create the policy for you, how awesome is that?! 😍

Pre-requisites

We have some prereqs to take into consideration:

1. PowerShell execution policy must be set to allow the tool to run about Execution Policies – PowerShell | Microsoft Docs
2. The PowerShell modue: Microsoft.Graph.Intune must be installed on the system running the tool GitHub – microsoft/Intune-PowerShell-SDK: Native PowerShell support for invoking Microsoft Intune Graph API to enable IT Pro scenario automation.

Now that we have taken care of the pre-reqs it is time to… wait for it…

….Rock Enroll!

Support

No support for Windows 11 as for now. I will work on that!
Edit: Good news! support for Windows 11 has been added.

Windows 10	OK
Windows 11	OK

Download

Download the zip-file from my Github NicklasAhlberg/Windows-Startmenu-Creator-Tool (github.com)

Prepare the reference machine

Let’s go ahead and manually configure a startmenu on a reference machine. We will then run the tool to have the configuration exported as an XML-file, and upload it to MEM.

1. Set up the wanted startmenu on a reference image (add the wanted apps to the startmenu manually).
2. You do not need to configure the taskbar as the tool will take care of that.
3. See gif (tool in action) for further instructions.

Run the tool

Note: You might need to exclude the tool from Attack Surface Reducation (ASR). The source code is available on my GitHub.

1. Make sure all pre-reqs are fulfilled.
2. Run the tool on the reference device.
3. Click Connect to connect to your tenant.
4. Add a Displayname (name of the policy).
5. Add a Description (will be shown at the policy).
6. Click: From reference machine checkbox.
7. Optional: Add taskbar items. Check the Use Modern Apps checkbox to query the system for all installed modern apps.
8. Optional: Click: Add taskbar item to add the selected app to the taskbar.
9. Optional: Use the textbox to add the desktopApplication path if you want to add a desktopApplication to the taskbar.
10. Optional: Check the custom taskbar combobox to check the items you have added.
11. Click Create config profile.
12. The policy has now been created in MEM.
13. Navigate to MEM and assign the policy to a couple of test devices.
14. For info: The XML-file is saved to C:\ for future reference. Open it in NotePad or in an XML-editor if you want to have a look.
    
    The Import XML button is used to import and upload an already existing XML to MEM.

Update: Added Windows 11 support