2Pint Software Monthly Roundup - April Edition

Welcome to the April edition of our monthly blog roundup! Each month, we highlight our 2Pint Software team’s industry-leading insights into OS deployment, network and bandwidth optimization, and modern content delivery. In this edition we cover Autopilot device registration, pausing a task sequence during OS deployment, some issues with recent endpoint management software rollouts, and a report on MEM Summit 2025 in Paris.

Michael Niehaus has been digging into device registration in Autopilot v1 and v2. In Automatically Registering Autopilot Devices with Intune he covers two primary registration methods: using hardware hashes for Autopilot v1 and corporate device identifiers for Autopilot v2. Niehaus details the process of setting up an application in Microsoft Entra, assigning the necessary API permissions, and generating a client secret to authenticate and interact with Microsoft Graph for device registration. He includes practical examples and scripts to streamline the automation process, to help IT administrators simplify device provisioning and management.

If you’ve ever wanted to pause a task sequence during OS deployment without using Task Sequence Debugger or a component from MDT, Johan Arwidmark’s shared a super useful PowerShell script in Quick OSD Tip – Pause until GO over on deploymentresearch.com.

The Windows 11 24H2 update rollout has generated a lot of chatter owing to the number of bugs. Mike Terrill has been chiming in with the IT administration community on X, logging and troubleshooting errors such as newly triggered ‘gateway resolution failed’ errors.

Our team, like many IT administrators, grappled with the release of version 2503 of Configuration Manager. Errors potentially generated included PXE clients stuck at “waiting for approval,” post-upgrade untrusted certificate errors, unexpected PXE password settings, and antivirus incompatibility issues. April service updates for Intune triggered Windows 11 update offers for devices even if policies were in place to explicitly block them. Let’s just say there’s some sleep to catch up on in May.

Several high-profile cyberattacks occurred in April. They brought down major retailers and severely disrupted commercial business activity. Government services and healthcare institutions have been hit around the world. It makes sense then that we’re seeing considerable interest in our enterprise disaster and ransomware recovery solution RecoveR. It provides a full range of build, rebuild and recovery scenario options.

April’s most exciting happenings were in Paris, where 2Pinters gathered for MEM Summit 2025.

2Pint Software was a silver sponsor for the event and Michael Niehaus was prominent in the event’s agenda. He shared his expertise on Windows Autopilot, peering content with Delivery Optimization and BranchCache, the future of Windows OS deployment, and showcased our DeployR solution in the sponsored talk. The sessions were very well attended, including one on DeployR that was fully booked.

We had a big crew on hand and our display table was chock full of great giveaways, including flasks, corkscrews and bottle cozies, caps and t-shirts, and of course Swedish candy (so good!).

Looking ahead to June, Michael Niehaus will be cruising the North and Baltic Seas. No sightings of Phil Wilcock this month, so we’ll ask Michael to keep his eyes peeled if his journey starts out anywhere close to the English Channel.

On June 3rd he’ll be at Experts Live Netherlands to share his deployment automation expertise from 14:00 – 14:50 in the Grand Hall for Hacking Windows Autopilot. The talk will focus on Windows Autopilot device provisioning, including installing apps, running scripts, applying policies, and more. He'll also look at creative ways to do more to have the device "ready for productive use" once the process completes.

Niehaus will then tack north for Workplace Ninjas Norway in Oslo on June 11th. He’ll be leading a session on Next-generation Windows Autopilot troubleshooting and discussing how to effectively troubleshoot both Windows Autopilot v1 and v2. As he’ll tell you: when everything works, Windows Autopilot is easy; when something doesn't work, figuring out what went wrong is hard.

Let’s hope the winds are favourable for a close reach as Niehaus turns back south. He’ll head towards the Öresundbron and Malmö, Sweden for PowerShell Conference Europe from June 23rd to June 26th. There will be two sessions led by Michael: Migrating to PowerShell 7 for IT pros on Tuesday June 24th, and Building a cross-platform OS deployment solution with PowerShell on June 25th.

Last but not least - don’t miss our May 27 DeployR Technical Preview webinar, and thanks for reading!