Windows 365

Discouraging data leakage on Windows 365

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This week is all about a few newly introduced features to discourage data leakage specifically for Windows 365. Within the Microsoft 365 solution there are many different options for protecting data. On the data itself as well as platform specific options. Windows 365 is the latest platform that can be added to that list with platform specific solutions. Windows 365 recently introduced screen capture protection that can be used to discourage leaking data by preventing it from being captured. Besides that, it also introduced watermarking that can be used to discourage leaking data by adding a watermark to the desktop that can be traced to the session or desktop of the user. Different solutions, for different scenarios. This post will start by briefly introducing both …

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Getting started with Windows 365 Switch

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This week is a follow-up on a blog post of a couple of months ago about a new feature for Windows 365 Enterprise. That post was focused on Windows 365 Boot and that post mentioned that last year Microsoft announced many nice upcoming features with Windows 365 App, Windows 365 Boot, Windows 365 Offline and Windows 365 Switch and more recently even a great licensing enhancement with Windows 365 Frontline. This time it’s about Windows 365 Switch, which is another new feature that was announced and recently released in public preview. Windows 365 Switch provides users with the ability to easily switch between the local desktop and a Windows 365 Cloud PC. That provides a seamless experience via the Task View feature on Windows 11. …

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Getting started with Windows 365 Boot

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This week is a follow-up on a series of blog post of last year about Windows 365 Enterprise that started here. In the meantime, Microsoft announced many nice upcoming features with Windows 365 App, Windows 365 Boot, Windows 365 Offline and Windows 365 Switch and even a great licensing enhancement with Windows 365 Frontline. In other words, definitely time for a new blog post. This week is all about the introduction of Windows 365 Boot. Windows 365 Boot enables administrators to simplify the sign-in process for users on Windows 11 devices, by taking away the sign-in to their physical device and enabling the sign-in directly to their Windows 365 Cloud PC. So, basically turning the physical device into some sort of a thin client. Signing …

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Automatically switching the Windows Firewall profile on Azure AD joined devices

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This new year starts with short blog post about another nice configuration addition to Windows. Starting with the latest release of Windows 11, it’s now possible to make the Windows Firewall aware of the location of the device. That maybe sounds a bit more than what it actually is. The idea is that it enables Windows to check if it’s on a domain connected network, based on the accessibility of one or more URLs. When one of the URLs is available, Windows will switch the Windows Firewall profile to domain. When none of the URLs are available, Windows will work how it always worked and in general simply rely on the public profile. That behavior enables IT administrators to configure specific firewall exclusions, only when …

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Easily managing Cloud PCs

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The last few weeks were all about getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PCs and Microsoft Dev Box. And especially for Windows 365 Enterprise also looking at the main different configuration options. As both are based on the same foundation, the result of both is a Cloud PC that is automatically enrolled and managed by Microsoft Intune. That automatic enrollment makes sure that it’s very easy to get started with managing Cloud PCs. By automatically enrolling into Microsoft Intune, all the standard Windows device management capabilities are also available for Cloud PCs. That means: device configurations, device compliance, application deployment, update management and reporting. This post provides a quick overview of the options that become available for easily managing Cloud PCs and that are …

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Getting started with Microsoft Dev Box

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The last couple of blog post were all about getting starting with Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PC. The first blog post, after a nice vacation, had to continue in that area. Just with a twist. This week all about Microsoft Dev Box. Microsoft Dev Box is now in preview and is a new managed service provided by Microsoft that builds on the strong foundation of Windows 365. That new managed service enables developers to create on-demand, high-performance, secure, ready-to-code, project-specific workstations in the cloud. The best part of it is that it enables developers to create their own dev boxes, within the provided technical and financial limits. The idea of this post is to show how IT administrators provide the technical framework, how development teams …

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Device compliance for Windows 365 Enterprise Cloud PCs

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This week is a short follow-up on my posts of the last couple of weeks about getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise. One of the items that was not specifically addressed is device compliance. In general it would be great to address Cloud PCs like any other laptop or desktop within the organization. There are, however, some differences to keep in mind and that might require organizations to use a slightly adjusted configuration for Cloud PCs. One of the main reason for that could be disk encryption. This post will address how disk encryption is different for Cloud PCs and also how other hardening features are similar for Cloud PCs. Besides that, this post will provide an easy method to work with exceptions for Cloud …

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Getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise using a custom image

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The last couple of weeks were mainly focused on getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise. Mainly focused on the networking configurations and join types of Cloud PCs. This week the focus will go to the more advanced imaging options. When looking specifically at Windows 11, the available Gallery image only contains the Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise. In some scenarios that might not be sufficient and some tuning and additional apps are required. In those cases, it’s always possible to rely on a custom image. An image that is based on the same starting point, but tuned to be a better fit for that specific scenario. This post will go through a simple process for creating an image based on an Azure Virtual Machine (VM), …

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Getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise using an Azure Network Connection

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This week is a follow-up on last week. Last week was about Windows 365 Enterprise in its simplest form, while this week will be about the more advanced networking forms of Windows 365 Enterprise. In other words, the different options of the Azure network connections and what it brings to Cloud PCs. For a quick introduction about Cloud PCs in its simplest form, with a Microsoft hosted network connection, have a look at that previous post. The more advanced networking connections enable organizations to create a connection with an on-premises environment. That on-premises environment can be an environment running in Azure, or an environment running in any datacenter. As long as it’s connected. The idea of this post is to provide the basics around the …

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Getting started with Windows 365 Enterprise using a Microsoft Hosted Network

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This week is not about something totally new, but it is about something that really deserves a place on this blog. It’s all about Windows 365 Enterprise. More specifically, Windows 365 Enterprise in its simplest form, in a Microsoft Hosted Network. Windows 365 Enterprise is a cloud-service provided by Microsoft that will automatically create Windows virtual machines (a.k.a. Cloud PCs) for licensed users. A very straight forward method to provide users with a personal PC from the cloud (a.k.a. Cloud PC). It combines the strengths of different Microsoft products by relying on Microsoft Endpoint Manager for management, by relying on Azure AD for identity and access control and by relying on Azure Virtual Desktop for remote connectivity. The idea of this post is to provide …

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