One of the best ways to get ready for Windows 10 is to deploy Internet Explorer 11 in your current environment, if you can make IE 11 work there is a huge chance that you will have no or just a few issues when Windows 10 is about to be deployed.

The best way to do that is to add IE 11 to the reference image when you are replacing, refreshing or perform a bare-metal deployment and the next best thing is to deploy it using any software distribution engine, like WSUS, ConfigMgr, Intune or something like that.

Even if you distribute it as a software, you should still update your reference image and here it is.

Step No:1 – Download IEAK

The best way to deal with IE11 is to create a configuration only package for all Windows versions that already have IE11 installed (Like Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2) and create a full install package for all the other versions of Windows you are using in your organization and that is done by Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK), just download it from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/bb219517.aspx and install on a computer WITH IE11 already installed.

Step No:2 – Create all packages

Start IEAK and create all your packages for each version and each language of IE you would like to have

• Windows 7 SP1 x86/x64
• Windows 8.1 x86/x64

(Create both full install package as well as as configuration packages)

Step No:3 – Download the PowerShell script

After creating all the packages, with the customized settings you will have a folder structure with full packages as well as configuration only for one or more language and instead of creating one application for each of these packages you can create one application in the deployment workbench that will figure out which package that should be installed.

1. Download the PowerShell script from http://1drv.ms/15EELL8
2. UnZip it and browse to the folder “Install – Internet Explorer 11\Sorurce”
3. Copy the content of you “build” folder that was created when using IEAK into the folder named “Source”, it should contain folder names like “BrndOnly”,”FLAT” and “Ins”

This is the tree structure after copying the files.

Step No:4 – Create the Application in the Deployment Workbench

No you need to create the application, follow these steps and you are done.

1. Open Deployment Workbench and browse to the Application node
2. Create a new application named “Install Internet Explorer 11” with the Command Line “PowerShell.exe -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File Install-InternetExplorer11.ps1”

The properties of the “Install – Internet Explorer 11” application in the Deployment Workbench.

Step No:5 – Add the application to the Task Sequence

Open your task sequence and add the application to the task sequence.

Install Internet Explorer 11 is added to the Task Sequence.

Happy OSD
/mike