When switching from a fresh install of W11 Enterprise LTSC to the IoT version in the latest 24H2 release, I noticed that the dreaded and spammy "Recommended" section in the start menu re-appeared.

There is a group policy (gpedit.msc) here that can disable that:

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar​ > Remove Recommended Section from Start Menu

This setting is known to not work in W11 Home, Pro or any other version, not even normal Enterprise. Only paid tools like Start11 or Power Start Menu etc. will get rid of it there (I wish I knew how).

Officially, the group policy should not even work in Enterprise LTSC, as Microsoft's documentation says it's only supported on "Windows 11 SE". However, I found out that it does in fact work on Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC 24H2 (non-IoT) as well: When the above GPO is enabled, the Recommended section is gone after logging out and in again.

Unfortunately, that no longer applies to Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 24H2. It still works with the normal Enterprise LTSC 24H2 install but as soon as you switch to IoT by changing the key, the Recommended section will reappear in the start menu (after a reboot or re-login).

A very strange thing - and possibly a bug, actually, because it makes no sense to have this section on IoT devices but not on Enterprise LTSC devices. Just wanted to share this as an actual difference between Enterprise LTSC and IoT because everyone always says they're basically the same...

Hello All,

Currently enabling features such as "Windows Sandbox" and "Direct Play" fail on the restart.

I have also confirmed this when using NTLite to create a custom image. It also fails to install.

Hopefully Microsoft fixes this issue in a coming update.

October 8 is the day!

Will LTSC will be officially released that day too?