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- The new Windows Autopilot device preparation capabilities needs the option to allow administrators to customize the OOBE experience. We do not want users to see the screens that allow them to configure location services, telemetry etc.
- yes, those are enterprise requirements. There should be a dropdown for locale with choice like "automatic" and alternative to set to a fix value. And of course same for keyboard layout !! This is known issue since years. If you want Enterprise acceptance, finally fix that. If we have swiss german keyboard and of course german language, we may get a german keyboard layout and cannot log in due characters wrong typed.
If it's ok, I had one more scenario we experienced. We purchased a Windows 11 Home machine, and upon bootup... Uses PowerShell to register the hardware hash. But then obviously cant run a Windows 11 Home through Autopilot, so had to upgrade to Windows 11 Pro using the Generic Windows 11 Pro Key, rebooted.... Then went through Autopilot process, all was smooth, machined upgraded to Windows 11 Enterprise, but it never activated it , even though the user logged had a full M365 E5 license. I read on forums that this is possibly a "bug". But Im curious, was the right process followed to get it through Autopilot? We have customers who sometimes have this scenario also so wanted to bring it up. Thank you again for all your time, this was a great session!
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
I suggest opening a support case on this as it's not Autopilot specific but rather Windows activation specific.- Thank you Jason! I thought so also, but thought I'd just ask here in case this had been reported/seen by others, specifically coming from Windows 11 Home. Thanks for the inputs
That concludes Tech Community Live: Windows edition! Thanks for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this session.
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Stay up to date on the latest in Windows! Bookmark the Windows IT Pro Blog and follow MSWindowsITPro on X and LinkedIn. Want more tips, tricks, and insights from the experts? Tune in to Windows Office Hours each month here on the Tech Community.- It's often recommended in many communities to disable the User prep stage during ESP. What are your thoughts on this?
- Jason_SandysThis is a general recommendation when using hybrid join even by us, however, this is not generally recommended when using Entra join. We don't recommend that you use hybrid join with Autopilot in the first place though because of the complexity and friction often involved (among other reasons). Disabling the user ESP addresses a small part of this friction and thus the recommendation. But, to avoid the friction completely and best prepare yourself for the current world environment and Zero Trust, we strongly recommend customers move to full Entra join for new device provisioning.
- Uhhh debugging... thats my keywor joe 🙂 .. Am I allowed also to drop some funny questions here.... 🙂
- Max_SteinReady, set, questions! 🙂
- In the future will there be a process flow to migrate between OS using Autopilot. Such as taking registered devices hosting windows 10 being migrated to wndows 11 using the reset functionality.
- Jason_SandysWhat's the bigger scenario here? Why do you need/want Autopilot involved in an OS upgrade instead of simply upgrading it in place using WUfB/Autopatch?
- For device refresh and removing the sins of the past per say. There are many customers that I work with that essentially want a wipe and reload.
- If we use Autopilot device prep, will we get the option to associate the device we add using that method with our tenant when that feature becomes available? Hope my question makes sense. Thank you all.
Thanks for participating in today's session of AMA: Windows Autopilot! For reference, the panel covered your question at around 49:55.
- I think one of the biggest challenges today we are seeing is clients who have tons of existing devices and they want to onboard them and make them Entra-ID Joined and Intune Managed, but its challenging without IT intervention, registering the hardware hash, run them through Reset process, etc... Having an end-user to go through is very impactful and wont really work for most clients. Is there any possible plans to somehow automate this process through Windows Autopilot where say users go through some basic steps and then device kicks into Autopilot mode, goes through OOBE, etc... Just curious if this would ever be considered! Thank you in advance!
Thanks for participating in today's session of AMA: Windows Autopilot! For reference, the panel covered your question at 46:50.
- Jason_SandysMany things are possible, however, our current guidance is to not convert existing device from hybrid joined to Entra joined and instead wait for some "natural" event like a device refresh or troubleshooting reset to move these existing devices to Entra joined. Is there a specific reason why this guidance isn't applicable or desirable for your scenario?
- I mean in the cases we've seen, the devices aren't even Hybrid Entra-ID joined, they are strictly AD Domain joined and you nailed when you said "natural" event and most clients end up going that route where they go full-on Entra ID Joined and go through Windows Autopilot for net-new devices, its more the case of clients who don't have that natural event per se and want to take their Domain Joined only devices and make them Entra-ID joined (which works for one-off cases), but if they want to do at scale across all their devices which aren't Intune managed today and not joined to Entra ID, they don't have a full streamlined way of doing it. Appreciate the feedback on this Jason, very helpful!
- During Autopilot can you force Feature Updates
Thanks for participating in today's session of AMA: Windows Autopilot! For reference, the panel covered your question at 42:55.
- Jason_SandysNo, not today. This is an of interest feature that has been investigated extensively but there's nothing to share about our future intent or timeline other than aspirationally, we would like to be able to offer this at some point during Autopilot.
- arpitsinha
No, we don't support feature updates currently.
We're halfway through the AMA: Windows Autopilot! Keep your questions coming. Thanks!
