MDM providers help manage your devices, and help manage apps on your devices. It's recommended to use a mobile device management (MDM) provider. To prevent users from making any changes to the Start menu layout, see the NoChangeStartMenu policy. This action restores the specified layout and doesn't retain any user changes. When a user signs in or Explorer restarts, Windows reapplies the MDM policy. Users can pin and unpin apps, and uninstall apps from Start. When you customize the Start layout, you overwrite the entire full layout. This article shows you how to export an existing Start menu layout, and use the JSON in a Microsoft Intune policy. The XML file isn't available on Windows 11 and later unless you're an OEM. In previous Windows versions, IT administrators used an XML file to customize the Start menu. To add apps you want pinned to the Start menu, you use a JSON file. As an administrator, use this feature to pin apps, remove default pinned apps, order the apps, and more. Customizing the Start layout is common when you have similar devices used by many users, or you want to pin specific apps.įor example, you can override the default set of apps with your own a set of pinned apps, and in the order you choose. Your organization can deploy a customized Start layout to your Windows 11 devices. Looking for OEM information? See Customize the Taskbar and Customize the Start layout.

Windows 7 start menu