Why are my taskbar pins in a different order to my LayoutModificationTemplate XML?

Question

Hi,

I'm working on our Windows 11 SOE and have created a LayoutModificationTemplate XML as instructed in the Microsoft Documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/customize-taskbar-windows-11

The resulting XML is as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LayoutModificationTemplate
	xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification"
	xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout"
	xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"
	xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout"
	Version="1">

	<CurstomTaskbarLayoutCollection PinListPlacement="Replace">
		<defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
			<taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
				<taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.OUTLOOK.EXE.15" />
				<taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Windows.Explorer" />
				<taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationID="MSEdge" />
			</taskbar:TaskbarPinList>
		</defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout>
	</CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection>
</LayoutModificationTemplate>

I've deployed this to a test device via an Intune Configuration Profile and it successfully applies, however the order of the pinned apps appears as:

1. Windows File Explorer
2. Microsoft Edge
3. Microsoft Outlook

Rather than:

1. Microsoft Outlook
2. Windows File Explorer
3. Microsoft Edge

There are only two possible explanations that I can think of:

1. File Explorer and Edge are pinned to the taskbar by default and so they are appearing in that same order and appending Outlook to the list.
2. Microsoft 365 Apps are being deployed to the device via Intune rather than installed and captured on the base image and this is resulting in the Outlook pin registering after the first two.

In the first case, I would assume that the PinListPlacement="Replace" would have taken care of this as it is supposed to override any default pinned apps. It certainly removes the Microsoft Store pinned app in the process.

In the second case, my understanding of the documentation is that the order of the TaskbarPinList from top to bottom should dictate the order of the pinned apps from left to right as a list that is stored behind the scenes and recalled when explorer.exe is restarted. For example, if I also included a Google Chrome between File Explorer and MSEdge, this would then only show up if a user installed Google Chrome and would also show up in that position on the taskbar. Have I misinterpreted the documentation in this regard?

Any help towards finding an explanation would be much appreciated. This isn't a deal breaker but it is an annoyance. We've carefully designed our layouts to best suit the needs of our organisations staff and it would be nice to know if I'm wasting my time by further troubleshooting this. I'd rather abandon this track entirely and begin looking for alternative solutions if this isn't going to work for us.

Kind regards,

Greg.