Install & restart notifications when using custom shell?

[forderud_ge]

I'm working on an embedded product where Windows boots directly to a custom shell application without admin privileges. This means that explorer.exe is not running, and as a consequence of that toast notifications for app install & system restart does not seem to be displayed. This is probably ok in many situations, but can also lead to unexpected slowdown for app installation in the background and problematic sudden restarts without any heads-up message.

Are there any best-practice on how to manage embedded products using a custom shell with InTune, so that at least the problem of sudden restarts are avoided?

Is it e.g. possible to defer app installations until the next reboot, or possibly develop custom display of toast notifications by integrating against some form of Windows API(?)

[#2 · Accepted solution]

You may want to have a look at the PSAppDeployToolkit (https://github.com/PSAppDeployToolkit/PSAppDeployToolkit). It allows you to display custom dialogs and gives you a whole lot of control over your app installations).

Most important: it's all PowerShell (and, in some cases, a helper service) so it works without explorer.exe. 

[#3]

Thanks for the tip! Will take a look.