Windows 11 Standard Operating Environment (SOE) With Group Policy

By Ben 30/01/2023

In this series I will focus on the delivery & customization of the Windows 11 (Enterprise) operating system.

I would usually deploy Windows 10 LTSC within a school environment, however, at the point of writing this there is currently no LTSC version of Windows 11 available.

I will add to this list over time but please find a list of posts below which you can read through to customize your Windows 11 environment, or use to build your Standard Operating Environment.

Customization of WIM file & removal of built-in apps

I used WIMWitch to remove the following apps from the ISO/WIM file. I then imported the customized WIM file into ConfigMgr/SCCM to deploy it via a task sequence. This can also be imported into WDS/MDT if this is your preferred deployment platform.

I removed the following apps:

Clipchamp
Microsoft.BingNews
Microsoft.BingWeather
Microsoft.GamingApp
Microsoft.GetHelp
Microsoft.GetStarted
Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub
Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection
Microsoft.People
Microsoft.MicrosoftPowerAutomateDesktop
Microsoft.ToDos
Microsoft.WindowsAlarms
Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub
Microsoft.WindowsTerminal
Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI
Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay
Microsoft.XboxGamingOverlay
Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider
Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay
Microsoft.YourPhone
Microsoft.ZuneMusic
Microsoft.ZuneVideo
Microsoft.QuickAssist

Deployment using ConfigMgr Task Sequence

To deploy the WIM file I used ConfigMgr along with a task sequence. The task sequence was very basic and carried out the following actions:

Joined the workstation to the Active Directory domain
Moved the object into a specific OU
Installed a few apps (Such as Microsoft Office & the ConfigMgr Client)

Core customization using Group Policy