Easily configure desktop and lock screen image via Windows 10 MDM

This blog post uses the Personalization configuration service provider (CSP) to manage the desktop and lock screen image on Windows 10 devices. This CSP was added in Windows 10, version 1703, which is currently available as Insider Preview build. This blog post is about the ability to easily configure separate images for the desktop and the lock screen on Windows 10 devices. Before Windows 10, version 1703, this was possible by using an MSI or by using the EnforceLockScreenAndLogonImage setting. However, the latter setting was only able to configure the lock screen image and not the desktop image. Windows 10, version 1703, introduces the Personalization CSP, which enables the administrator to manage the desktop and lock screen image. In this post I’ll briefly go through …

Read more

Require BitLocker drive encryption via Windows 10 MDM

This blog post uses the BitLocker configuration service provider (CSP) to manage drive encryption on Windows 10 devices. This CSP was added in Windows 10, version 1703, which is currently available as Insider Preview build. This blog post will be about requiring BitLocker drive encryption on Windows 10 devices. Until Windows 10, version 1703, this was not possible. It was only possible to create a compliance policy that would block access to Windows 10 devices without BitLocker enabled. Windows 10, version 1703, introduces the BitLocker CSP, which enables the administrator to manage BitLocker settings via Windows 10 MDM. In this post I’ll briefly go through the available settings in the BitLocker CSP and I’ll show how to require BitLocker drive encryption via Microsoft Intune hybrid …

Read more

Offboard Windows 10 devices of Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection

This week a follow-up on my post of last week. Last week was about onboarding Windows 10 devices for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and this week will be about offboarding Windows 10 devices of Windows Defender ATP. For devices that are leaving the company, for whatever reason, it’s good to first offboard those devices of Windows Defender ATP. That will remove the Windows Defender ATP settings from the device and the device will stop collecting and sending data. In this post I’ll show how to offboard Windows 10 devices, via Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune, and I’ll show the end result. The steps in this post will be similar to the steps in the post of last week. Configuration Just like last week, …

Read more

Onboard Windows 10 devices for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection

This week a blog post about onboarding Windows 10 devices for Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Windows Defender ATP is a relatively new service that will help enterprises to detect, investigate, and respond to advanced attacks on their networks. In this post I’ll show how to onboard Windows 10 devices, via Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune, and I’ll show the end result in the Windows Defender Security Center and the Configuration Manager administration console. Configuration There are multiple methods available to onboard Windows 10 devices for Windows Defender ATP, Group Policy, Configuration Manager, mobile device management (including Microsoft Intune) and a local script. I’ll have a closer look at the configurations for onboarding Windows 10 devices via Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune. Create onboarding …

Read more

Company Portal app enrollment for Windows 10

This week a small blog post about the Company Portal app enrollment experience, for Windows 10 Desktop devices, that has been recently added to the Company Portal app. This new experience enables the end-user to perform the enrollment procedure during the initial sign-in to the Company Portal app and aligns the enrollment experience with the other supported platforms.. This blog post will show this new enrollment experience, the new alterative enrollment experience and the end result. Main end-user enrollment experience Now let’s start by looking at the main new end-user enrollment experience on Windows 10 Desktop devices via the Company Portal app. This complete experience is nothing more than the following 4 simple steps. 1 The end-user opens the Company Portal app and is prompted …

Read more

Deploy the commercial ID via Windows 10 MDM

Yeah, I had some problems this week with thinking of a title that would fit with the content. Usually I’ve got the title before I start with the content, this week not even close. The main reason for that is the fact that this weeks blog post is mainly focused on distributing the commercial ID that’s used for connecting Windows 10 devices to Windows telemetry related solutions, like Upgrade Analytics (preview) and Update Compliance (preview). As those features and terminologies are not that widely known, yet, using commercial ID in the title might not be very catchy. That being said, I used it anyway. This blog post will provide an introduction about what can be achieved by deploying the commercial ID, what the required configurations …

Read more

Managing Windows 10 IoT Core devices via MDM

This week a new challenge for a new blog post, managing Windows 10 IoT Core devices. The nice thing about Windows 10, even Windows 10 IoT Core, is the availability of MDM. The availability of MDM is what will help me with managing Windows 10 IoT Core devices. In this post I’ll go through the steps to create an enrollment profile to enroll Windows 10 IoT Core devices in Microsoft Intune hybrid. I’ll end this post with an overview of the end result in Configuration Manager Configuration Let’s start by looking at the configuration in Configuration Manager. To create an enrollment profile, for Windows 10 IoT Core devices, it’s required to provide a certificate profile and it’s optionally to provide a Wi-Fi profile. Create certificate …

Read more

The Software Center experience is getting better and better

Throughout my blog posts I always think its important to mention the end-user experience. This blog post will be mainly focused on the end-user experience in Software Center. Software Center went, from an end-user experience, through a complete revamp. The best thing is, it’s only getting better and better. Except for a few items, related to the devices of the end-user, Software Center is becoming the one place for the end-user to be. In this post I want to go through the latest changes to Software Center and show the related end-user experience. Changes Now let’s start with the latest changes to Software Center. It all started with a new modern look for Software Center and it quickly evolved to a easy customizable app. Especially …

Read more

Managing Windows Defender via Windows 10 MDM is getting easier and easier

This post is an updated version of a blog post that I did one-and-a-half year ago about managing Windows Defender, of Windows 10, via OMA-DM. As I still get questions about that post and the OMA-URI settings that are used in that post, I thought it would be good to mention that easier methods are available nowadays. Starting with Configuration Manager 1610 and the Microsoft Intune standalone update around March/ April 2016, it’s simply configurable through the console. No need anymore to configure all those OMA-URI settings manually. Within this post I’ll provide a quick overview of the configuration options, followed by an overview of the end result. That end result will show how the configured settings simply translate to the known OMA-URI settings. Configuration …

Read more

Automatic edition upgrade for Windows devices

My first blog post in this new year will be about the feature to automatically upgrade the edition of Windows devices. This is already possible, for a while, for Windows 10 devices managed via the MDM channel. However, starting with Configuration Manager 1610 this is now also possible for Windows 10 devices managed via the Configuration Manager client. In this post I’ll provide the general information and configuration settings that are applicable for Microsoft Intune hybrid and Microsoft Intune standalone. I’ll end this post by showing the details of the end result on a Windows 10 device managed via the Configuration Manager client. Think about details like how this is achieved and the relation to the MDM channel. Information The edition upgrade feature can be …

Read more