Configure storage sense via Windows 10 MDM

This blog post uses the Storage node of the Policy CSP, to configure Storage Sense on Windows 10 devices. Most of the policies in that area are added in Windows 10, version 1903, which is currently still in preview.

This week a short blog post about a few newly introduced policy settings in Windows 10, version 1903, which is currently still in preview. Those settings are related to Storage Sense and those settings are made available via a newly introduced ADMX-file. That ADMX-file is StorageSense.admx. Storage Sense can automatically clean some of the user’s files to free up disk space. In this post I’ll briefly go through the available settings, followed by the configuration and the end-user experience.

Settings

Let’s start by having a look at the available settings. The Storage area is not a new node within the Policy CSP, but starting with Windows 10, version 1903, it does contain multiple new policy settings. These policy settings are ADMX-backed policy settings, which are part of the new StorageSense.admx. Below is an overview of the available policy settings. Keep in mind that the complete node of these policy settings, starts with ./Device/Vendor/MSFT/Policy/Config/Storage/.

Policy Description

AllowStorageSenseGlobal

Values: 0 (Disabled) or 1 (Enabled)

This setting can be used to enable or disable Storage Sense and to make sure that the user cannot override that.

AllowStorageSenseTemporaryFilesCleanup

Values: 0 (Disabled) or 1 (Enabled)

This setting can be used to configure that when Storage Sense runs, it can delete the temporary files that are not in use.

ConfigStorageSenseCloudContentDehydrationThreshold

Values: 0-365 (Days)

This setting can be used to configure that when Storage Sense runs, it can dehydrate cloud-backed content that hasn’t been opened in a certain amount of days.

ConfigStorageSenseDownloadsCleanupThreshold

Values: 0-365 (Days)

This setting can be used to configure that when Storage Sense runs, it can delete files in the Downloads folder if they have been there for over a certain amount of days.

ConfigStorageSenseGlobalCadence

Values: 1 (Daily), 7 (Weekly), 30 (Monthly) or 0 (During low free disk space)

This setting can be used to configure Storage Sense to automatically clean some of the files to free up disk space.

ConfigStorageSenseRecycleBinCleanupThreshold

Values: 0-365 (Days)

This setting can be used to configure that when Storage Sense runs, it can delete files in the Recycle Bin if they have been there for over a certain amount of days.

Note: Even though these policy settings are ADMX-backed policy settings, I noticed that it wasn’t required to use specific configuration values. I could use simple integer values.

Configuration

Now let’s continue by having a look at the configuration options for Storage Sense. In other words, create a device configuration profile with the previously mentioned custom policy settings. The following three steps walk through the creation of that device configuration profile. After that simply assign the created profile to a user or device group.

1 Open the Azure portal and navigate to Microsoft Intune > Device configuration > Profiles to open the Devices configuration – Profiles blade;
2 On the Devices configuration – Profiles blade, click Create profile to open the Create profile blade;
3a

MSIntune-DC-SS-01On the Create profile blade, provide the following information and click Create;

  • Name: Provide a valid name;
  • Description: (Optional) Provide a description;
  • Platform: Select Windows 10 and later;
  • Profile type: Select Custom;
  • Settings: See step 3b.
3b

MSIntune-DC-SS-02On the Custom OMA-URI Settings blade, provide the following information and click Add to open the Add row blade. On the Add row blade, provide the following information and click OK (and click OK in the Custom OMA-URI blade);

  • Name: Provide a valid name;
  • Description: (Optional) Provide a description;
  • OMA-URI: Specify a the required policy setting;
  • Data type: Select Integer;
  • Value: Specify the required value.

Note: Simply repeat this step for every policy setting that should be configured.

MSIntune-DC-SS-03

Note: At some point in time this configuration will probably become available in the Azure portal without the requirement of creating a custom OMA-URI.

End-user experience

Let’s end this post by looking at the end-user experience. Below is an example of a Windows 10 device running the latest available Windows Insider Preview build. In that example it’s clearly shown that Storage Sense is enabled and managed by the organization.

StorageSenseEnabled01

More details about the Storage Sense configuration can be found when clicking on Configure Storage Sens or run it now. These configuration options are shown below, including the configuration that I’ve applied, which can’t be adjusted.

StorageSenseEnabled02

More information

For more information about the available storage sense settings in the Policy CSP, please refer to the documentation about Policy CSP – Storage.

4 thoughts on “Configure storage sense via Windows 10 MDM”

  1. Thanks for writing this article.
    I was wondering if on top of following the steps, you also need to load the whole admx file using for example your other post: Deep dive ingesting third-party ADMX-files.

    It wasnt entirely clear if you needed to ingest the StorageSense.admx file or not. Perhaps because it is a Microsoft ADMX File and not third party no further ingestion steps are necessary?
    Thanks a lot

    Reply

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