Hello!
I am testing pre-deployment of Windows 8.1 in our 2008R2 domain. So far only my workstation is upgraded to win8x64 (from win7x64) and I am assessing if all of our LOB aps and servers will work fine with it. A few questions
1. We use workstations coming with OEM win8 license (all currently running win7 downgrade). I noticed that oficially there is no win8.1 offline upgrade package! Does that mean that Microsoft officially wants people to sing into Windows Store with a Microsoft account to perform online upgrade with administrative privileges? That's pretty awkward ...
I figured that I could use win 8.1 installer ISO/UFD that I created in past (for home computer actually), but am not sure if that works out with our win8 OEM license keys tied to BIOS/UEFI on each desktop computer.
Was actually expecting an 8.1 Service Pack package that I could publish to WSUS, so it could take care of upgrade on win8 computers, but there is no such thing ... and no official package for 8.1 offline deployment either ... weird ...
Currently I am actually about to upgrade my own/test workstation to 8.1 (from 8.0, using Windows Store online), then sysprep it and create a reference WIM image and see if I can deploy 8.1 thick image (with all updates and company apps installed) this way
via WDS. anybody tested if it works this way? any gotchas?
2. win8 GPOs
Can somebody enlighten me where in Group Policies I can find a setting to re-assign ALL file/media extensions (e.g. jpg, tiff, png, bmp, mp4, WMV, etc.) back to Desktop applications instead of the horrible Metro UI equivalents?
We are actually about to bypass Metro UI completely on each computer so it boots straight to desktop and all file upon double-click must open an application within Desktop (no Metro UI for end users).
I know how to do this manually one by one via Group Preferences, but am asking if there is some specific GPO ADMX setting that would replace Metro UI apps with Desktop application in any and all file associations.
Personally I see no point in using the clunky Metro UI without a touchscreen.
3. is UAC enabled required for Windows Store to work?
Seems like it needs at least the Low security setting, so the Windows Store and Metro UI stays operational. no workaround for that for disabled UAC environment?
Just asking, it's not a big deal, people can learn to live with UAC, but am curious if that's by design.
Thanks for answers!