Windows 10 Controlled folder access – remove “Documents” from protected folders list

Unfortunately, there's not a simple environment variable you can check from a batch script if you've redirected this from the default path relative to your profile. You can see the full list of environment variables (including some undocumented) here:

http://ss64.com/nt/syntax-variables.html

Another thing to keep in mind is folder redirection even allows you to move these to a network share. There doesn't have to be a "drive" you can use all; it might just be a UNC path.

The good news is the information you want is available at the following registry location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\Personal

There's a whole set of folders you can move around in that User Shell Folders key, but to read the My Documents folder here using Windows Batch looks like this:

reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v Personal

On my machine this produces the following output, which may be more or less useful to you depending on what you need and how good you are with Windows Batch scripts:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
    Personal    REG_EXPAND_SZ    C:\Users\joel\Documents

You can also try vbscript:

Set wshshell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Documents = wshShell.SpecialFolders("MyDocuments")

or Powershell:

[Environment]::GetFolderPath('MyDocuments')

This may eventually be available via bash on Windows, too (really!), but I haven't seen how to do it yet in a way that will be consistently accurate.

There is no such policy that will configure Start at once, moreover, it's not possible. First, you need to remove unwanted items from %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. This refers only to the Win32 desktop apps.

Secondly, you need to uninstall and de-provision ModernApps (like Xbox, etc.) that are installed in the system. There is no way to remove them from the menu like .lnk file. They are added automatically to the Start menu if they are registered in the system. You can remove them using Powershell (run elevated Powershell window): e.g. For delete Maps you can use:

Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* -Allusers | Remove-AppxPackage

To remove provisioned WindowsApps from user accounts:

Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName <PackageName>

Read more here and there.

Finally, you can configure tiles in the Start menu to display only required items. Here you can use one of 2 options:

1. GPO to push required Start layout
2. Local xml file and registry setting to force apply the same file
3. Import XML file for Start layout into the default profile.

The first two do not allow to modify layout items, while the last one applies the default layout to the user profile allowing him to change it.

To prepare XL file you need to use Powershell:

Export-StartLayout –path <path><file name>.xml

All three options are well described in Microsoft Docs.