Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro - Start Screen Layout Deployment GPO

We have recently finished signing our Microsoft Customer License Agreement (CLA) for reselling Windows on a diagnostic tool for our industry. We developed our software with Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro from an MSDN source. Installed from MSDN, configured,
put 20 mobile devices in the field for testing, and pushed updates to them. As a part of this we were able to remotely modify the start screen and add new icons for the newly installed software. Now that the MS CLA is complete we have received the official
Embedded 8.1 Industry Pro OPK from Microsoft Ireland and recreated our setup. So far all but one function works as expected. We are finding that we are unable to modify the Start Screen Layout via XML file or any other method as we did with the MSDN setup.
I have reviewed HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows NT/CurrentVersion for build and product ID information to find the MSDN install and the OPK install both show the same information other than install date. The DigitalIDs are different though.
We needed the Embedded version for the Unified Write Filter and after being able to modify the start screen layout with our MSDN copy all looked great. After not being able to modify the start screen layout with our official OPK copy of 8.1 we've done additional
searching to find: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/71f0be7a-43af-4ca3-a068-f99b92217e2a/windows-81-start-screen-layout-gpo?forum=w81previtpro Which plainly says that 8.1 PRO is NOT able to do this.
Is this correct?
If so why might our MSDN installation have worked while the OPK installation does not?
Why wouldn't an EMBEDDED INDUSTRY PRO version not allow for such a simple function? People using this version I would image would require the most flexibility and customizable options versus another, no?
If this advanced and highly modifiable version of 8.1 pro cannot do this then how might it be recommended to accomplish this goal?
Please help as this may soon push our development out much further.
Thanks in advance,
Joey

Hi HVACjoe
For general system start screen control is supported in the Windows 8.1 Enterprise operating system, the Windows RT 8.1 operating system with sideloading enabled, and in all editions of the Windows Server
2012 R2 operating system. Start screen control is not supported in the Windows 8.1 Pro operating system.
As Tripredacus mentioned that Windows Embedded support is not typically handled on the public forums and Microsoft Developer Network distributes special editions of Windows for testing and development purposes, those are not general purpose licenses and
the validity of the key has a time limit, we could not access resources from MSDN for test.
We suggest you look for help from your Embedded Partner or MSDN forum
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home
You could get more information from following link about start screen lay out.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn467928.aspx
Regards

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Thank you for posting in Windows Server Forum.
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In your case, you can try to edit “Start Screen Layout” setting under below mention path.
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Please refer below article which helps to guide you in better way.
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