Moving from MDT/WDS to Autopilot – Real-World Lessons, Wins & Gotchas
Hi all, We’ve been moving away from an ageing WDS + MDT setup and over to Windows Autopilot, and I thought I’d share a few key lessons and experiences from the journey. In case anyone else is working through the same transition (...or about to). Why the change? MDT was becoming unreliable, drivers/apps would randomly fail to install, WDS is on the way out, and we needed a more remote-friendly approach. We also wanted to simplify things for our small IT team and shift from Hybrid Azure AD Join to Azure AD Join only. We’re doing this as a phased rollout. I harvested existing device hashes using a script from a central server, and manually added machines that weren’t online at the time (most of which were just unused spares, we haven't introduced new hardware yet). If you want a copy of this auto-harvest, please see my next post, this script is useful as it'll just go off and import the hardware hashes into Intune, and can run against multiple computers at a time. (I will add the link to the post once made). Some of the biggest hurdles: • 0x80070002 / 0x80070643 errors (typically due to incomplete registration or app deployment failures) • Enrollment Status Page (ESP) hangs due to app targeting issues (user vs device) and BitLocker config conflicts • Wi-Fi setup with RADIUS (NPS) was complex, Enterprise Certificates and we're still using internal AD for authentication, so user accounts exist there and sync over to Azure. • Legacy GPOs had to be rebuilt manually in Intune, lots of trial and error • Some software (like SolidWorks) wouldn’t install silently via Intune, so I used NinjaOne to handle these, along with remediation scripts in Intune where needed We also moved from WSUS to Windows Autopatch, which improved update reliability and even helped with driver delivery via Windows Update. What’s gone well: Device provisioning is more consistent, updates are more reliable, build time per machine has dropped, and remote users get systems faster. It’s also reduced our reliance on legacy infrastructure. What I’m still working on: Tightening up compliance and reporting, improving detection/remediation coverage, figuring out new errors that may occur, and automating as much manual processes as possible. Ask me anything or share your own experience! I’m happy to help anyone dealing with similar issues or just curious about the move. Feel free to reply here or message me. Always happy to trade lessons learned, especially if you’re in the middle of an Autopilot project yourself. Cheers, Timothy Jeens
Windows 10 Download Speed is very slow
Although there is no internet connection speed issue on other mobile devices and computers connected to the same modem, the internet download speed is 2 Mbps and the upload speed is 9 Mbps on my computer. Both Windows 10 Pro and MacOS are installed on the same computer (i.e Macbook Pro). When I switch to MacOS, the internet download speed is 75Mbps as it should be. I've tried the most common solutions suggested on Microsoft's site and other sites on the subject. None of them worked out. I reinstalled Windows 10 by protecting the files and programs on my computer, but there was no solution. I also shut down all non-Windows applications and services that started automatically when the computer was booted, again, there was no solution. I tried 7-8 more actions without any solution. My computer did not have such a problem 2 weeks ago. It started suddenly. Windows 10 Pro was upgraded recently to version 1909. Even though, I'm not sure I suspect this might be the problem. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance. Update after 5 years (22 August 2024): I could not find a solution to this problem. I experienced this problem twice. Each time, I had to completely format the Windows installation on Boot Camp. Then, reset macOS. After that reinstalled Windows on Macbook Pro via Boot Camp from scratch. That solved my issue. I suspect the issue might be due to some updates that came via Boot Camp. Also, don't install Wifi related updates provided as optional updates on Windows if you don't experience any issue at that moment. Such updates may be the reason as well.