Windows 10 - Set Start Layout via GPO

Looks like you have all the basic troubleshooting steps complete. Some points that are easily missed:

• Are you running Windows 10 Enterprise? Start layout control is not supported in Windows 10 Pro.

• Is the target system the same architecture as the system you exported the layout from? Start layout can only be applied to a device using the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) as the device on which Start layout was created.

If neither of those is an issue, for testing purposes, copy the XML file onto a target system, and change the path to point to it locally, just to rule out any possible strange network issues.

Also, try manually importing the layout to a target system using the Import-StartLayout PowerShell script. This would rule out any issues with the XML file

Finally, check it the source and target machines running the same version/build of Windows 10, with the same updates. Although not explicitly stated anywhere, it wouldn't be the first time Microsoft has failed to ensure backward compatibility with an update.

EDIT: Confirmation on the lack of Windows 10 Pro compatibility is given here under the section entitled "Existing Fundamentals":

EDIT #2: With the newest release of Windows 10 Pro (version 1703) it is now possible to deploy a customized start layout via GPO (only to W10 systems running v1703, though). See: What's new in Windows 10 1703

Enterprises have been able to apply customized Start and taskbar layouts to devices running Windows 10 Enterprise and Education. In Windows 10, version 1703, customized Start and taskbar layout can also be applied to Windows 10 Pro.

It turns out that the answer I initially accepted is wrong.

I can confirm that it is perfectly possible to distribute the StartLayout via GPO to Windows 10 Professional, too. It works for both the computer configuration as well as the user configuration GPO.

The problem in my specific case lay elsewhere. I had both a permission problem on the share of the xml file and, apparently, a corrupted xml file. The event viewer messages were not helping to figure this out.

After sorting out the permission issues and recreating the xml file, everything works the way I expected it to.

You can deploy a start screen without this gpo with some limitations mainly that you can only configure it once during the production of a standard syspreped image.

When creating the image setup your start screen as you would like it then shutdown and boot from a usb key. When you are booted from another os you can copy the TileDataLayer folder from c:\users\you\appdata\local\ to c:\users\default\appdata\local\

When this is done all new user accounts created using this image will have the preconfigured start screen regardless of their edition.

This has the added benefit over enterprise edition + the gpo in that users can pin new items to the menu.