Managing security policies for Dev Drive

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This week is all about another new Windows 11 features and that feature is Dev Drive. Dev Drive is a new form of a storage volume that is aimed at improving performance for key developer workloads. It enables users to create a separate volume on their device that will improve the performance for disk-bound operations such as cloning, building, copying files, and package restore. To gain that performance, Dev Drive builds on ReFS technology. That technology provides file system optimizations and more control over storage volume settings and security. That includes trust designation, antivirus configuration, and administrative control over what filters are attached. All of that, could also be a reason to make sure that some security-minded Dev Drive configurations are in place. To make sure …

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Working with web sign-in on Windows 11

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This week is a bit of a follow-up on a post of about two years ago and is mainly focussed on creating some awareness. That post was specifically about enabling web sign-in to Windows for usage with Temporary Access Pass. That web sign-in functionality provides a web-based sign-in experience on Microsoft Entra joined devices. At that time, that web-based sign-in experience was limited to Temporary Access Pass (TAP). Starting with Windows 11 version 22H2 with KB5030310 and later, that has changed. The supported scenarios and capabilities of web sign-in are now expanded. Besides TAP, it can now also be used for a passwordless sign-in experience with the Microsoft Authenticator app, a seamless Windows Hello for Business PIN reset experience, and even a federated identity with …

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Deploying and configuring the Azure VPN Client app on Windows devices

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This week is all about deploying and configuring the Azure VPN Client app on Windows devices. The Azure VPN Client app can be used to connect to any Azure VPN gateway. That provides access to specific Azure virtual networks, even when working from a remote location. That can useful in many different situations. The great part is that, nowadays, the Azure VPN Client app can be deployed and configured by using Microsoft Intune. At least, when using Microsoft Entra ID for authentication. In that case, it’s possible to make it all automatically available to user. The only action left for the user is to authenticate. To achieve that, there are a few specific configurations required. This post will walk through the main configurations regarding the …

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Configuring Windows Hello for Business cloud Kerberos trust

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This week is all about Windows Hello for Business. More specifically, about Windows Hello for Business cloud Kerberos trust. Not something really new, but definitely something that should be part of the default toolset. Hopefully familiar nowadays, Windows Hello for Business can be used to replace password sign-in with strong authentication on Windows. On top of that, Windows Hello for Business cloud Kerberos trust brings a simplified deployment experience for hybrid authentication with Windows Hello for Business. To provide that functionality, it relies on Microsoft Entra Kerberos for requesting Kerberos ticket-granting-tickets (TGTs). And those TGTs can then be used for on-premises authentication. A bing difference with other deployment models is the simplicity. No dependency on a public key infrastructure (PKI) and no need to synchronize …

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Configuring multi-app kiosk mode on Windows 11

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This week is all about multi-app kiosk mode on Windows 11 devices. Kiosk mode on itself is nothing new, nor is the configuration of kiosk mode. However, until a few months ago, it was not possible to configure multi-app kiosk mode on Windows 11. That’s possible now, except the configuration options via Microsoft Intune are not that straight forward yet. As in, it’s not available via a standardized configuration profile yet. It is, however, already possible to configure multi-app kiosk mode via the MDM WMI Bridge Provider. That provider relies on configuration capabilities within the MDM channel, which means that the configuration can also be achieved directly via Microsoft Intune. Multi-app kiosk mode relies on assigned access to run one or more apps from the …

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Getting started with web-based device enrollment for iOS devices

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This week is all about a new enrollment feature for iOS/iPadOS devices. That feature is web-based device enrollment. Web-based device enrollment is now one of the two device enrollment methods that is available for personal iOS/iPadOS devices. The other method is the already existing device enrollment with the Company Portal app. The main differentiator for web-based device enrollment is that it provides a faster and more user-friendly enrollment experience. It’s no longer required to first download the Company Portal app. Instead the user can just go to the Company Portal website, or start the new enrollment experience via an app that requires a compliant device. More user-friendly and accessible via the favorite browser of the user. Besides that, web-based device enrollment can be used in …

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Using temporary enterprise feature control for early testing new features in Windows

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This week is all about creating awareness around a recently new feature for controlling the availability of new features in Windows 11. That new feature is temporary enterprise feature control. Temporary enterprise feature control is introduced – together with permanent enterprise feature control – to manage the introduction of new features within the enterprise. With the continuous innovation that was recently introduced by Microsoft, new features are no longer only introduced with the latest feature update. New features are now already introduced with the Latest Cumulative Update (LCU), but are off by default. And new features with impact (like new experiences, new in-box applications, removing existing capabilities, or overriding previously configured settings) are behind that new feature, temporary enterprise feature control. New features behind that …

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Scheduling automatic policy refreshes for Windows devices without requiring a check-in

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This week is sort of a follow-up on a blog post of about four (!) years ago. That post was focussed on the policy refresh on Windows devices. Since very recently, there is now something new available to refresh the applied configurations. That something new is: Config Refresh. Config Refresh can be used to configure a refresh cadence in which the already received configuration policies will be refreshed. No matter if the device is online, or offline. A great addition to at least make sure that the received configuration is applied. Config Refresh became available as a configuration option in Microsoft Intune, with the latest service release (2309). Besides that, it relies on an addition in the DMClient CSP that became available just recently in …

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Enabling remote access for specific users on Azure AD joined devices

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This week is sort of a follow-up on my previous posts about restricting the local log on to specific users. While those posts were focused on restricting the local log on, this post will be focused on enabling remote access for specific users. More specifically, remote access for specific users on Azure AD joined devices. That’s not something to exciting, but definitely something that comes in useful every now and then. Besides that, this was already possible – for a long time – but would often require the device to be joined to the same tenant and take out some security configurations (like Network Level Authentication). That’s no longer required – already for almost a year – as it it can now rely on Azure …

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