Windows Autopilot - enroll device without operation system installed

Question

I'm looking for documentation that will describe below scenario:

1.Employee get fired.
2.I have manually get the hardware hash of that computer (to import to Intune)
3.After specific time employee's computer was formatted (disks wiped-out).
4.Old computer goes to new employee.
5. IT staff prepare computer to enroll it with windows Autopilot and send it to new employee (in the meantine, below:)"

I want to manually prepare this computer in Autopilot.
Computer has not operation system installed on, disks was wiped out some time ago.

Is there a way to somehow enroll device with Autopilot from windows that has no operation system installed?

Or the only option is to install Windows 10 just to select reset button? (nonsense).

Any information much appreciated.

Answer 1

If the computer already exists in Intune, and you wipe it via Intune management, the OS will be re-installed, and then you just enroll it again to Intune via Autopilot. Basically, Intune Wipe does the same thing like Windows Reset and deleting all existing data.

If you wipe disk manually with 3rd party tool and the drive is clean, you need to install Windows 10/11 on it before you can enroll it to Intune again. So, Intune does not take any action from the moment your disk is clean to the moment you are in Windows OOBE after installation.

Answer 2

@MaciekK Thanks for posting in our Q&A.

For this issue, currently, there is no method to do autopilot enrollment without operation system installed.

Based on my research, I find that Michael Niehaus says hardware hashes do change each time they are generated in his blog.
https://oofhours.com/2019/07/07/what-happens-when-you-register-a-device-with-windows-autopilot/
Note: Non-Microsoft link, just for the reference.

As is known to all, autopilot enrollment method needs to upload a csv file in intune, included Device Serial Number,Windows Product ID and Hardware Hash. So, I think install Windows 10 is not only to select reset button, but also to get the correct device information.

For your scenario, Autopilot Reset action will make it easily to move the old computer to new employee. It isn't needed to format the device.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/autopilot/windows-autopilot-reset

Thanks for understanding.

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Answer 3

@Lu Dai-MSFT thank you for detailed answer.
Unfortunately due to our internal policy we have to wipe out (format) the computer of the employee that is leaving company.

So we can gather the hardware hash of the computer before wipe out the computer and the provide it to intune.

Is there a way to boot computer from PXE and then deploy system via autopilot?
I have only found information that we need to have windows 10 and use reset button to deploy computer via autopilot?

But to this this we will need to install windows 10 and then reset computer. This is not an automation process.

Is there a method to deploy windows 10 image from Intune (Endpoint Manager) via PXE (network boot)?

Thanks in advance.