Enhance User Experience: Customizing Windows 11 Start Menu with MDT

Customizing the Start Menu in Windows 11 and deploying it across multiple machines can significantly enhance user experience and streamline workflows. In this guide, we’ll walk through the steps to customize the Start Menu layout in Windows 11 and deploy it using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT). The same process can be adapted for use with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) for more extensive enterprise environments.

Step 1: Prepare a Windows 11 Machine

To begin, locate a Windows 11 machine that you will use for customization. For this example, we are working with Windows 11 version 23H2. To check the version of your Windows 11 machine, right-click on the Start Menu, select “Run,” type WINVER, and press Enter.

Step 2: Customize the Start Menu Layout

• Open the Start Menu and start removing any unwanted items. Customize the layout according to your preference. In this example, we only keep Microsoft Edge, Settings, File Explorer, and the Calculator on the Start Menu.
• Once you’ve configured the Start Menu layout as desired, open File Explorer.
• Click inside the address bar at the top of File Explorer and type %LocalAppData%, then press Enter. This will redirect you to the Local AppData folder.
• Navigate to the following folder: Packages > Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_8wekyb3d8bbwe.
• Within this folder, locate the LocalState folder and open it. Inside, you will find a file named start2.bin. This file contains the Start Menu layout configuration.
• Copy the start2.bin file and paste it somewhere convenient, such as on your MDT server. This file will be used during the deployment process.

Step 3: Prepare the Deployment with MDT (video)