Some Notes on the Machines

When you encounter a user account that spins forever trying to sign in on a computer that already has a local copy of their profile, here is a few steps to resolve the issues quickly without either data loss or the need to create a new Windows profile:

1. Sign in on an account with Local Administrator rights
2. Navigate to “C:\Users”
3. Locate the profile folder of the user unable to sign in.
4. Rename the folder (Usually I add “.old”)
5. Sign out
6. Sign in as the user who’s profile has not been working
7. While signed in on this temporary profile, navigate back to “C:\Users”
8. Rename their profile folder back to what it was originally
9. Sign out
10. You should now be able to sign in normally to that user with their profile intact.

Contributed by the excellent Joe Busby.

To change it in local policy:

Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration >Windows Settings > Security Settings > Network List Manager Policies >[properties of the the network name in question] >network location tab then pick your Location type.

An excellent tool from The Windows Club. Found by the excellent Joe Busby.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-4-windows-10

If your Active Directory dates back to Server 2003, you may have “Internet Explorer Maintenance” items in GPO. These are obsolete IE control specifications which can not be edited on newer servers. To delete these items:

support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2722241/policy-reporting-tools-indicate-empty-internet-explorer-maintenance-po

Tested under Windows 10 only, this works well for non-OEM:

(Get-WmiObject -query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey

and this appears to be good for OEM/sticker:

(GCIM SoftwareLicensingService).OA3xOriginalProductKey

Updates are being distributed to Windows 10 via peer-to-peer methods, in addition to cloud-to-PC. This will be essential to handle the big build files, 4 gigabyte plus, at many sites.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-delivery-optimization

If you see that Windows built-in search components (any of several, including the Indexer, Cortana, etc.) are using a lot of your disk bandwidth, run this in an administrative Powershell:

Add-AppxPackage -Path “C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\Appxmanifest.xml” -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register

It appears to reset or reload Cortana or a big chunk of it, and probably disable “Development Mode” too. One web reference stated that the above has to be run in a newly created local admin profile to work.

Also, if you’re in a former (or, God forbid, current) SBS environment, make sure the SBS client is removed, and make sure GPO isn’t automatically reinstalling it.

This is easily done in Local Group Policy, on the machine with the RDS licensing server:

Computer Configuration/
Administrative Templates/
Windows Components/
Remote Desktop Services/
Remote Desktop Session Host/
Licensing

There is a setting in Windows Group Policy which will force lockscreen / locked screensaver after a machine considers itself inactive for a specified amount of time:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-protection/security-policy-settings/interactive-logon-machine-inactivity-limit

This overrides all other related (e.g. screen saver) settings and PC-local settings. It’s located here in group policy:

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options

and while creating/linking group policy on a server:

Computer Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options

The simplest appears to be thus:

wmic computersystem where caption='oldcomputername' rename newcomputername

If it is run from an administrative CMD and the machine is in good talking relationship with its domain controller, the PC and also AD rename will complete. If either prerequisite is not met, the rename will fail. A non-admin attempt fails with code 5, DC availability fails with 1355.

There is also tool, part of the 2003 server reskit and included later on, which can do the rename of a desktop from a domain controller:

NETDOM RENAMECOMPUTER OLDNAME /newname:NEWNAME /userd:domain\domainadmin /passwordd:password /force /reboot:0

It causes a reboot of the target machine. /reboot:0 means no delay; the number is in seconds.