Excluding removable USB-drives from automatic encryption

This week a short blog post to address a scenario that’s been challenging for a while. That scenario is around removable USB-drives and automatic encryption. When organizations have configured that removable drives require encryption, that introduces challenges with storage built into specialized devices like video cameras, voice recorders, conferencing systems, medical devices and many more. That would also require that type of storage to be required, when read access wasn’t sufficient. That, however, would often cause more problems than solutions. To address that challenge, Microsoft has introduced a new policy. That policy can be used to create an exclusion list of devices for which the user will not be prompted for encryption. Even when encryption of removable drives is required. This post will introduce that …

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Even easier managing local administrators

This week is back in the Windows platform. This week is another time about managing local administrators on Windows 10 devices and later. That subject has been discussed multiple times before – either by using custom device configuration profiles or by using proactive remediations – and this time it’s about a new configuration option within Microsoft Intune that provides a friendly configuration experience for the IT administrator around the custom device configuration profile option. That configuration relies on the LocalUsersAndGroups policy that is available with Windows 10 20H2 or later, or Windows 11. This blog post will provide an introduction to a new profile type and will show how to use that new profile type to easily manage local administrators. This blog post will end by …

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Customizing the default app associations on Windows 11 devices

This week is another follow-up on the posts of the last weeks about customizing Windows 11 devices. This week, however, is focused on customizing the default app accosiations on Windows 11 devices. Customizing the default app associations enables organizations to associate specific apps with file and link types, for their users. Besides that, this post is also an updated version of this post of over four years ago. Even though not a lot has changed, the configuration did become easier. This post goes through the creation of the required app assocations file, folowed with applying that file on Windows 11 devices. This post ends with showing the user experience with the customized app assoications. Important: My personal opinion is that – as with every other …

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Customizing the Taskbar on Windows 11 devices

This week is a follow-up on last weeks post about customizing the Start menu layout on Windows 11 devices. This week, however, is focused on customizing the Taskbar layout on Windows 11 devices. Customizing the Taskbar layout enables organizations to create a standardized layout for their users. With the arrival of Windows 11, the configuration options for customizing the Taskbar layout have changed. Especially from a setting-by-setting perspective the options are now rather limited. This post does a quick breakdown of the Taskbar layout in Windows 11 and the different configurations that are available, per section. That breakdown is followed with a zoom-in on the actual configuration for creating the standardized layout. This post ends with showing the user experience with a customized Taskbar layout. …

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Customizing the Start menu layout on Windows 11 devices

This week is all about customizing the Start menu layout on Windows 11. Customizing the Start menu layout enables organizations to create a standardized layout for theirs users by pinning apps, removing default apps, ordering apps and more. The configuration of such a standardized layout has changed from Windows 10 to Windows 11. To create a standardized layout for Windows 11, the IT administrator must use a JSON-file. In previous versions of Windows, that required a XML-file. That configuration change, justifies an explanation about the Start menu layout in Windows 11 and the different configuration options. This post breaks down the new Start menu layout in Windows 11 and the different configuration options that are available, per section. That breakdown is followed with a zoom-in …

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Locating lost or stolen Windows 10 devices

This week is all about a small new feature for Windows 10 devices that was introduced with the latest service release of Microsoft Intune. That new feature is the ability to find lost or stolen Windows 10 devices. Starting with the 2104 service release of Microsoft Intune, the Locate device remote device action – already available for supervised iOS and iPadOs device – also becomes available for Windows 10 devices. That enables IT administrators to find lost or stolen Windows 10 devices. This post will start by going through the information about the new remote action, including the implications, followed with the steps for configuring the privacy settings. This post will end by showing the IT administrator and user experience. Introduction to the location service …

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Easier managing local administrators via Windows 10 MDM on Windows 10 20H2 and later

This week back to the Windows platform. This week is again about managing local administrators on Windows 10 devices. Even in a modern world, there can still be a need for managing the local administrators on a Windows 10 devices and often that still requires more flexibility than provided with the default Azure AD functionality. I’ve also discussed managing local administrators already multiple times – either by using a Windows 10 MDM policy setting or by using proactive remediations – and this time it’s about a new method that became available in Windows 10, version 20H2 and later. That method is a new Windows 10 MDM policy setting. In this post, I’ll provide an introduction to that new policy setting and I’ll show how to …

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Windows 10 MDM Bridge WMI Provider: Settings template

This week my post is a few days later, as my post is an extension of my session at the Workplace Ninja Virtual Summit 2020. At the virtual summit I did a session about Getting to know the Windows 10 MDM WMI Bridge provider and during my session I shared how to easily work with the Windows 10 MDM Bridge WMI provider. Similar to using Microsoft Intune to address the different CSPs, we can also use PowerShell via the WMI bridge. The main thing that I’ve showed at the end of that session was a setting template, basically a PowerShell-function, that can be used to set, adjust and remove nearly all settings via the MDM WMI Bridge provider. That PowerShell-script is available below and I’ve …

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Quick tip: Easy method for constructing settings of ingested ADMX-files

This week a quick extra blog post, just before the start of my vacation, about an easy method for construction settings of ingested ADMX-files. A few years ago I did a post about a deep dive for ingesting third-party ADMX-files and until today I still receive questions on that post that are related to constructing settings of ingested ADMX-files. Even though the described method is still available, there is an easier method for constructing the settings of ingested ADMX-files. A method that is less sensitive to errors. The following four steps walk through that easy method by again using chrome.admx as an example. The first step is ingesting the ADMX-file. That can be achieved by following the same steps as provided in my earlier post. …

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Configuring the usage of Bluetooth encryption via Windows 10 MDM

This week a short blog post about configuring Bluetooth on Windows 10 devices that are managed via Microsoft Intune. More specifically, about configuring the Bluetooth encryption strength that is required for pairing Bluetooth devices. Last year there was a vulnerability regarding the Bluetooth encryption key negotiation that was addressed with an update to Windows and a specific configuration that should be performed to required a specific encryption strength. By default Windows allows all Bluetooth traffic, but with this vulnerability in mind some organizations might want to enforce a minimal encryption key size to be required for Bluetooth traffic. Even if that means that some Bluetooth devices won’t work, or stop working. In this post I’ll start with showing how to configure the Bluetooth encryption key …

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