Windows 10 Offer Icon (GWX) - How to get it on AD/Domain joined PCs?

Question

I know there´s no need to rush getting Windows 10 as I should receive it for free in the future, at least according to what I´ve read.

However, information about the upgrade offer popping up in the taskbar tray icon area are showing up and I didn't get those yet.

I think I found the reason. My 3 PCs are members of a small private Active Directory, all are Windows 8 Pro, upgraded to Windows 8.1 and have genuine keys applied to them. Opening the config in "C:\Windows\System32\GWX" shows, that the following value is set:

 <EnableDomainJoined>false</EnableDomainJoined>

The file is write protected and can only be edited as an Administrator. Doing so and setting that value to true I am still not getting the icon. I tried running the GWX executable before and after running the pre-defined scheduled tasks "Microsoft/Windows/Setup/gwx*".

There's another value, where the current phase is defined. I´ve set the following to "AnticipationUX" since for that phase "TrayIcon" is defined as true.

<Phase>None</Phase>

This didn't change anything either.

Does anyone know how to activate the upgrade offer on PCs that are members of a domain? I don't want to take the PCs out of it just for this.

Answer 1

In your case, it seems there are only three machines and you're happy to temporarily change their domain status, which you've already tried to do by changing this setting:

<EnableDomainJoined>false</EnableDomainJoined>

But as you've found, this doesn't cause the upgrade offer to pop up in the system tray.

Instead, simply remove each machine from the domain, and re-add it to the domain once you've registered for your upgrade.

First check you have the relevant Windows Update installed (KB3035583) by typing the following at a command prompt:

wmic qfe | find "3035583"

You should see some output showing that you have KB3035583 installed:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=3035583  XXXXXXXXX  Update
KB3035583                NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM    5/24/2015 

If the command returns nothing, you don't have KB3035583 installed and until you do have it installed, there's no point proceeding with the rest of these steps.

Assuming you have KB3035583 installed, now remove your computer from the domain by putting it in a workgroup, and reboot. (Before removing it from the domain, remember to make sure you have the credentials of the local administrator, as you'll need able to log on to the local machine after the reboot.)

Directly on rebooting, the Windows 10 notification appears obligingly in the system tray:

Now you can click the notification and go through the dialogs...

...to reserve your upgrade.

Once you're done with the Windows 10 dialogs, re-join the computer to the domain.

EDIT for July 29: don't forget, all GWX does initially is the compatibility check on your computer. Regardless of whether you use GWX, you are still eligible for the free upgrade anytime during the first year per the MS terms. If you don't want to wait for the automatic phased download by GWX to complete (or the automatic download by Windows Update, for those who didn't run GWX or are no longer running it), you can download Windows 10 now:

Answer 2

According to Microsoft bars more enterprise devices from seeing Windows 10 upgrade 'nag' campaign:

The Windows Enterprise exclusion is consistent with what Microsoft has said previously, that that SKU will not be eligible for the free upgrade. By refusing to show the alerts and ads to Windows Enterprise users, all devices joined to a domain, and managed mobile devices -- largely tablets running the consumer-grade Windows 8.1 -- Microsoft avoids irritating IT administrators, who will not want their users to see an upgrade offer before their company is ready to migrate to Windows 10.

Doesn't look like end users can make the Get Windows 10 app behave any differently by setting EnableDomainJoined to true at their end, just as you've found out.

Answer 3

Although machines joined to a domain won't see the Get Windows 10 app, there is actually no need to use that app to upgrade. Microsoft has made the Windows 10 installer freely downloadable at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10.

Answer 4

Of interesting note is that we are now seeing DOMAIN JOINED Windows 7 PC's automatically downloading the Windows 10 upgrade without the user being prompted or the user taking any action of their own.

Since this morning (3rd August 2015) I've had a whole series of clients contact me with Internet service related problems - saturation and packet loss being the most common.

It took a while to realise that machines were downloading Windows 10 although the GWX update confirms that they are not eligible.

A folder in C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download is being created with a 3GB staging file. Some machines have gone further and created the C:\$WINDOWS.~BT folder which commonly is seen to hold about 147MB of content.

I assume something has gone wrong with Windows Update and is causing this to occur. I believe it's only Windows 7 machines affected at this stage. I haven't yet seen any Windows 8 machines that have performed the download.