This week is all about customizing the account settings in the Start layout. Customizing the Start menu layout has been the subject of discussion multiple times already on this blog. There is, however, a lot more that can be done. Of course, that something is possible, does not mean that it should be done. In most cases, it should be up to the user to configure in the Start layout whatever they need to be productive. There are, however, cases in which an IT administrator might need to take a bit more control. That can be useful on shared devices, such as kiosk devices and Shared PCs. This post will be part of a series to go through the different sections of the Start layout, starting with the account settings. Those account settings are basically referring to everything that can be configured that is part of the user tile and directly related components. This post will start with an overview of the available configuration options, followed with the configuration steps and the user experience.
Introducing the account settings configuration options
When looking at customizing the account settings in the Start layout, it is all pretty straightforward. Nearly all clickable options in the user tile are configurable. Those configurable items are shown on the right in Figure 1, and are referenced in the table below. That table provides an overview of the configuration settings that belong to those configurable items. The numbers with the friendly names, refer to the numbers in the image. That should provide a pretty clear overview of what those configuration settings will actually configure.
The image actually only shows four of the six items that are configurable, when discussing the account settings. The other are the account notifications for Microsoft accounts and local accounts, and the fast user switching option on the logon UI. The latter is pretty straightforward and is not part of the overview picture, and the former is only in specific scenarios (as described in this post of last week.
| Friendly name | Node | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Disable account notifications | DisableAccountNotifications | This policy setting can be used to control the notifications to Microsoft account (MSA) and local users in the user tile. Alternatively Accounts Block Microsoft Accounts could be used to completely block the usage of Microsoft accounts. |
| Hide Change account settings (1) | HideChangeAccountSettings | This policy setting can be used to control the appearance of Change account settings in the user tile. The configuration is not possible when already hiding the user tile. |
| Hide Sign out (2) | HideSignOut | This policy setting can be used to control the appearance of the Sign out item in the Start menu. |
| Hide Switch user (3) | HideSwitchAccount | This policy setting can be used to control the appearance of the Switch user option in the user tile. |
| Hide entry points for Fast User Switching | HideFastUserSwitching | This policy setting can be used to control multiple users signing in at the same time, using the Fast User Switching feature. |
| Hide user tile (4) | HideUserTile | This policy setting can be used to control the appearance of the user tile in the Start layout. |
Note: It might look obvious that Hide Lock would also be part of the configuration option. That is correct, however, the option itself is nowadays part of the power options and not the user tile.
Configuring the account settings in Start layout
When looking at the configuration of the account settings, the experience is pretty straightforward. The settings Hide Change Account Settings, Hide Sign Out, and Hide entry points for Fast User Switching are all ADMX-backed settings, while the remaining settings are all MDM-specific settings that are not available via Group Policy. Luckily, the configuration of all of those settings is pretty straightforward, as the setting is available within the Settings Catalog. The following eight steps walk through the configuration to configure the different account settings in Start layout.
- Open the Microsoft Intune admin center portal and navigate to Devices > Windows > Configuration profiles
- On the Windows | Configuration profiles blade, click Create > New Policy
- On the Create a profile blade, select Windows 10 and later > Settings catalog and click Create
- On the Basics page, provide at least a unique name to distinguish it from similar profiles and click Next
- On the Configuration settings page, as shown below in Figure 1, perform the following actions and click Next
- Click Add settings, navigate to Start and select Hide Change Account Settings, Hide Switch Account, Hide User Tile, Hide Sign Out, navigate to Windows Logon and select Hide Fast User Switching and navigate to Local Policies Security Options and select Accounts Block Microsoft Accounts in Settings picker
- Enable and configure the different settings that are required for the use cases.
- On the Scope tags page, configure the required scope tags and click Next
- On the Assignments page, configure the assignment for the required user or devices and click Next
- On the Review + create page, verify the configuration and click Create
Note: The configuration of the Turn off account notifications in Start policy setting itself could also be done, but requires a custom OMA-URI. Besides that, the usage is limited to really specific scenarios.
Experiencing the account settings in Start layout
With the different configuration options that where discussed around the account settings, the user can be pretty much contained within any required boundaries. Basically, any available options within the user tile can be configured within the account settings. That is shown below in Figure 3 and Figure 4. When nothing is allowed within the user tile, to prevent sign out, user switching, or account configurations, the complete user tile can be removed (as shown in Figure 4). When specific actions are still allowed, the user tile can be stripped down to only specific accounts options (as shown in Figure 3).
More information
For more information about managing notifications, refer to the following docs.
Discover more from All about Microsoft Intune
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
1 thought on “Customizing the account settings in Start layout”