Applying Start Menu Layout?

One thing that I had to fiddle with were the scemas included in the .xml found in the <LayoutModificationTemplate> tag. The instructions on TechNet provided a good framework, but did not work perfectly 1st try.

Here is a sample of what I am using and is working. I would also try building that .xml from the same version that you are deploying to as suggested above.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LayoutModificationTemplate
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification"
xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout"
xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"
xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout"
Version="1">

</LayoutModificationTemplate>