I am creating a Windows 10 64 bit LTSB 2016 image and I am going to do a copy profile. I want my default profile to have a customized Start menu. With personal folder, file explorer, etc on the left side. So I activated it. When I run copy profile (sys prep) do I need to deactivate it first or will sys prep do that for me? :)
Thanks.
You should never activate Windows on reference machine used to build Windows image to be captured for deployment. Never.
In any case, you must use generalize switch with Sysprep if you want to make image hardware independent and / or use CopyProfile = True setting to copy your customizations to default user profile. Generalizing automatically removes any used product key and license, activation status will be reset to Not activated. No deployed Windows instance using that image will be activated, even your reference machine loses its activation.
You can enter your MAK volume licensing key in answer file (settings pass 4 Sepcialize > Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral > ProductKey) to get deployed Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB licensed and activated on each machine.
Kari
Wow. Thank you for sharing your expertise with me. This is an awesome forum. You're right. I gave it a try anyways. It did remove the activation but also, my custom start menu and taskbar didn't keep. I really wish they didn't do that. Restrict us from customizing those.
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