In several of my previous articles, I've discussed how to remove built-in applications and capabilities during operating system deployment. Over the past few years, I delivered quite a few customer-focused Windows 10 workshops in which I placed emphasis on covering Windows as a Service in great depth. After all, one of my primary goals is to enable IT departments to keep pace with more frequent Windows updates and to allow them to continuously deliver new functionality to end-users. I realize that there are still some misconceptions out there as well as a need for more user guidance. In today's blog post I'd like to focus on removing built-in applications and capabilities straight from install.wim, and why you might want to do this in the first place.

Windows 10 "April 2018 Update", also known as version 1803, "Redstone 4", or RS4 will be available via Windows Update for Business, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and the Volume Licensing Servicing Center (VLSC) starting on the 8th May with the download via Media Creation Tool and Visual Studio Subscriptions (MSDN Subscriptions) already being available. Windows 10, version 1803 is the fifth feature update released for Windows 10. As with the previous updates, Microsoft continues the trend of moving to more agile development and delivery models as part of the ongoing "Windows as a Service" efforts with Windows 10 1803 update making the base operating system better with new features to help IT pros more easily manage and better protect data and devices in their organizations.

The development of the Spring Creators Update (codenamed "Redstone 4") is now heading towards the finishing line. We can assume that Windows 10 1803 is now feature-complete and as such, I can't stress it highly enough that you should start testing the newest features and functionality in this Semi-Annual Channel release as soon as possible in preparation for broad deployment to the devices in your organization. As part of this process, you should take a look at provisioned apps - most likely you want to ensure that only a choice selection of apps is being installed, whenever a user logs on either for the first time or after installing a feature update on a Windows 10 computer, because app installation directly impacts login times.

While I sometimes long for the day when I no longer have to deal with unexpected Windows 10 behavior, there’s something rewarding about quickly finding a solution. In the process, I often end up with an idea for a blog post I can share with thousands three regular readers. Yesterday I successfully solved an interesting case that opened when a customer contacted me a month ago and reported that the Photo app was no longer working on their 1709 reference image.