I had the opportunity to try out Windows Configuration Designer recently. My hope was that it would make new installations of Windows easier and quicker by automating the repetative parts.
This post will share my experiences using this tool and my thoughts on it. First of all, it was surprising that the tool could be downloaded from the Microsoft Store and I was quite impressed that the program’s rating was over four stars. That’s rare for an app that Microsoft developed.
The installation was simple enough and I began setting up a new project. I liked how you could set random values for the name (like CompanyName-%RAND:5%).
Another thing I found helpful was that you can join a domain automatically by including credentials in the package you generate.
There was also an option to join a WiFi network automatically, but I found that did not work on some systems that needed WiFi drivers installed before they could connect.
One option while creating the package was to switch to the “advanced editor”. The popup notice is extremely important to read (I did not read the entire message the first time). Once clicked, you cannot go back to the “simple” editor for some reason.
There are a ton of options in the advanced editor. It actually felt a little overwhelming. Thankfully, Microsoft includes a help page that opens at the bottom of the window when you select something.
There were some other bugs I found, but nothing that makes the program impossible to use. Overall, I think it is a very useful tool for anyone who has to install Windows on multiples systems and would suggest giving it a shot!