Giving computers custom names is something which is somewhat of a hot potato. We have been doing it for years, and I’ve even blogged about it previously (olastrom.com – Naming conventions). It’s something which is important for some, but from an asset perspective it has kind of played out its role since it is not persistent.
However, one thing that has been a really important thing for some, has been the possibility to configure the naming convention for Windows 365 Cloud PCs which has not been possible. Until now!
With the update in the end of March 2023, this is now doable. It follows the same pattern as the naming convention for Windows Autopilot enrolled devices. You can set a prefix followed by variables. For Cloud PCs, these are a bit different, but follow the same idea.
As you can see by the picture, the name can be between 5 and 15 characters and can include some additional characters except for numbers and letters. The computer name MUST include at least 5 random characters using %RAND:y% where y is the number of random alphanumeric characters. I can however leave out the username and only use random characters.
Configure Cloud PC naming
To configure Cloud PC naming, you can either create a new provisioning policy or change an already existing one. In this example, I will change one of my existing policies. This new setting is by default off in all existing policies and you will need to actively set this for new policies.
Head into Microsoft Intune (intune.microsoft.com) and navigate to Devices > Windows 365 and select the Provisioning Policies tab.
Either select “+ Create policy” or modify an existing policy. I’ve chosen to update my existing policy for my Swedish users. When you get to the “Configuration” step in the policy, you can enable the Cloud PC naming by checking the check-box. It will then display the option to enter a custom name.
As you can see by my example, I’ve chosen to set the policy to give my Cloud PC a name which is CPC followed by five random alphanumeric characters followed by SWE. So, the name could end up being CPC-ABC12-SWE.
Conclusion
“With great power comes great responsibility”. Use naming wisely. To be honest, for Cloud PC naming makes slightly more sense since we don’t have serial numbers or such as an identified. However, naming will change once re-deployed since we have a random part of the name if is enforced. But with this function we can adapt it to fit with the rest of our naming conventions a bit more. You could even just set the same as for all other PCs (except you will get alphanumeric and not numeric random characters).
Microsoft finally released the long-awaited Intune Suite, or as it is called in Intune “add-ons”.
But what is the Intune Suite and why should I even care? That’s what I’m set out to cover in this blog post, and we will take a look at what there is right now and what’s to come.
One major change happened when this was introduced, and that is how Intune is licensed. Or at least it got some new names. Microsoft Intune Plan 1 is what previously was just called Intune and is included in the Microsoft 365 and EMS plans. This will give you the core Intune features as you have been using them today (with some exceptions).
Then we have Microsoft Intune Plan 2 which are some add-ons to plan 1 including Microsoft Intune Tunnel for Mobile Application Management, which will give you an option to use Intune Tunnel together with your MAM enabled applications. And then we also have Microsoft Intune management of specialty devices, which enables you to manage specialty devices in Intune such as AR/VR devices, conference room meeting devices and large smart screen devices.
For Plan 1, there is also a possibility to buy Remote Help, Endpoint Privilege Management, Advanced Endpoint Analtics and the other upcoming features as standalone services to your Plan 1.
Intune Suite – premium features for Intune
The Intune Suite is a packaged deal which includes all the bells and whistles. You get Plan 1 and Plan 2, but also all the nice extra add-ons. Today, this list is quite limited since it will only get you Plan 2, MS Intune Tunnel for MAM and Remote Help on-top of your Plan 1 licens (which you got from your M365 license anyway). BUT, and this is the selling point, you will get all the upcoming features once they are released.
The two already released premium features (if we disregard the Plan 2 features), are by them self really good products. I’ve previously covered the Remote Help app which since then has been refined even further.
Microsoft has further announced that they will release Endpoint Privilege Management (which is currently in public preview) and Advanced Endpoint Analytics as a start, but there are more things coming which will make this suite even better!
Why should I consider this?
Should you consider the Microsoft Intune suite? Well, that depends on your needs. For some, it certanly makes sense to consider it given that they are interested in a lot of the listed features. For others, maybe just one is interesting which then makes more sense to buy as add-ons on it’s on rather than buying the whole suite.
I think, as of right now, Remote Help and the upcoming Endpoint Privilege Management is what will be most useful for many companies as it solves two major headaches: A remote support tool integrated to Intune and a first party solution to manage local administrator. There are a lot of other good tools out there to manage both remote support and local administrator but having a first party tool comes with advantages such as good integrations to Intune for e.g. reporting.
I will in feature post dig in more to the features of the Intune Suite, but for now we have set the scene!
I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately about the “why” around Cloud PC, why and when you would use a Cloud PC and what the scenarios could be. This inspired me a bit!
The way we often see virtual computers is that “yeah they are great, but this is way too complex for us” or the more common one “we triend that 5 years ago, we won’t go down that route again”.
My idea for this post is to talk a little bit about why you should move to Windows 365 for the bulk of your users and use AVD for those niche implementations where Windows 365 can’t really fulfill your needs today.
Why would you work from a Cloud PC?
Image that you are like me, a consultant, who collaborates with several different customers who all have their own environment. Or maybe you have taken the decision to support Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), which would be a similar scenario for consultants.
When I talk to customers and other people about Windows 365, we often discuss two scenarios:
Consultants/part time workers,
Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A).
The first one is way more common to be honest since most organisations today have at least some consultants in their team.
If you look at a consultant, they usually work for some kind of company which provides them with a computer which they take with them everywhere they go (I know I do). Since they already have a computer, why give them yet another one to fill their backpack with? Why not use a Cloud PC which they can access from a device of their choice, which you can configure in such a way that information cannot leave the Cloud PC.
Using a Cloud PC, you can give a consultant or employee access to the internal network without them having to install anything on their, by your company, unmanaged device. The device they will work from will be fully managed and you can be sure that you have done everything in your power that you have secured your data.
Working from a Cloud PC isn’t that different from using a physical, since all we do today requires an internet connection anyway. Sure, you get reliant on always having an internet connection (until Windows 365 introduces the offline mode). But let’s face it, we are already reliant on that for collaborating in our daily work, I’m myself never offline unless basically traveling on an airplane.
Environmental impact
There is also another aspect of this, which we might not always talk about, but I find interesting. It’s the fact that getting new computers has a significant impact on the environment, and getting hold of hardware isn’t always that easy nowadays (long lead times).
Using Windows 365 has some environmental benefits compared to physical computers. Firstly, it reduces the amount of energy, water, and resources needed to produce and dispose of physical hardware. Secondly, it optimizes the use of computing resources and reduces energy consumption, which lowers the associated carbon emissions.
However, using virtual desktops needs a reliable internet connection and raises concerns about data privacy and security. Overall, while the environmental impact of using Windows 365 compared to physical computers is complex, cloud-based computing services can reduce the need for physical hardware and use computing resources more efficiently, thus benefiting the environment.
The fact that we can run Cloud PCs on any hardware, this also means that older hardware can be used longer (but be careful using Windows 10 after 14 of October 2025 since it will no longer get patched). There are many ways of making use of older hardware without needing to install Windows on them even. IgelOS is an awesome example of this, and there are many other products like them!
The takeaway
So, what do I think you should take away from this blog post?
Firstly, I think you should seriously consider STOP giving your consultants PCs and have them use Cloud PCs instead. This will save you time and money since you will not have to source computers for them, and it’s not too uncommon that we provide consultants with older hardware which might have reached the end of its lifecycle and might not be too reliant anymore.
Secondly, let’s face it. The consultant already has one computer which they bring wherever they go. Why give them yet another computer they need to fit into their already filled up backpack? And when the assignment is over, you have the hassle of getting that computer back, especially if you have used resources which are not local to your area. Then it needs to be shipped or a visit to the office planned and coordinated.
Using a Cloud PC, you can have a consultant up and running within a few hours, without having to get any kind of hardware to them!
But as always, there are of course instances where a physical machine is required, but I would say that you could solve the consultant situation 80-90% of the time! 😊
As many probably know, Microsoft released a bigger update to Windows 11 with the March Patch-Tuesday release. This patch was more than just patches, this included also some new features like the Windows 365 app which reached GA earlier this year, video recording in the Snipping tool and some pretty cool AI features from Bing.
But one of the better new features is, according to me, the new energy recommendations to help you decrease your carbon footprint. This new feature is just a set of recommended settings to set for your computer to be more energy efficiant.
The end-user could implement these settings themselves, but let’s face it, no one outside the IT department would look for that in the settings.
Since Windows does not enforce the policies to be changed, someone needs to make an active decision here.
This is what my device looked like when just jumping into the settings. What options you see might vary depending on what device you are using, and you can even get recommendations on a Cloud PC. In this example, I’m using a desktop PC. As you can see I have two settings which are not in line with Microsoft recommendations, and one which is managed by Intune. If I had a laptop, there would have been more options for me such as screen brightness and battery optimization.
Here I can select if I want to apply all or just a subset of actions. If I click on apply all, all settings will be updated to the recommended value.
I can also now see, if I step back in the settings menu, that I have enabled all available settings.
Conclusion
Even if this is a small update, I think it’s a good and important one to adopt. You can of course look into having these defined within your environment, which will mean that users cannot change these settings themself if they would like for some reason.
This is a balance between enforcement and spreading awareness amongst users. There might be reasons for users needing increased brightness on their screen as an example. But looking at this from a sustainability perspective, this is a great place to start working with your computers around this even more.
This is the second version of this post, since the original one got lost in a recovery since my blog went down.
One thing that many IT pros tend to use a lot is virtual machines in e.g., Hyper-V, for testing or running different things. That is also one excellent advantage of having a physical computer, that possibility to run multiple virtual machines (VM) locally. However, what if you use a Cloud PC and want to run local VMs?
This has been possible since a while back if you were running the fancier SKUs of Windows 365 (the 8 vCPU one), but that is also combined with a higher cost. You could enable the hypervisor on the Cloud PC and run Hyper-V.
However, since February you can run Hyper-V on one of the “lower” SKUs of Windows 365, the 4 vCPU version. This is a fantastic addition to the value Windows 365 brings, since you don’t have to get the fanciest version, you can stick to a more resonable machine.
Enabling Hyper-V
Enabling Hyper-V on a Cloud PC isn’t much different from a physical client. You need to have local admin privileges on the machine, either through given rights or a secondary account. Then search the start menu for “Turn Windows features on or off” and open the dialogue.
Look for Hyper-V in the list of features, select it and then press OK to close the dialogue.
Once you have done this, you will be asked to restart your machine to enable the new Windows features. So go ahead and restart the machine directly or do it later if you need to save any work you have open.
If you want to learn more about the different ways you can enable Hyper-V, check this Microsoft article out, since there are other ways than clicking through the interface Enable Hyper-V on Windows 10 | Microsoft Learn.
Run Hyper-V on your Cloud PC
Just like with any other computer, once the Hyper-V feature has been enabled and you have restarted your machine, you can now go ahead and start the Hyper-V Manager. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to start Hyper-V in an elevated context, otherwise you will not be able to connect to your local machine as a server.
From here you can create your virtual machines using either your own image or using the quick create feature. So, this is nothing different from running Hyper-V on a physical client!
Conclusion
Having the opportunity to utilize Hyper-V, or other types of local virtual machines, can be a crucial feature for many IT Pros. Looking at how Windows 365 is being adopted at least on the Swedish market, we see a lot of consultants and temporary workers using this as their “customer computer”. Since you could now use Hyper-V on even that computer, this means that you no longer need to rely on having test environments on your local machine, opening the possibility to work from more types of devices while still being able to perform task from a more powerful computer.
For me, working as a consultant and mostly utilizing Cloud PCs when working with my customers, this opens new possibilities to run tests in the customers environment in a much simpler way.
Once every now and then you get one of those weird and maybe a bad ideas and ask yourself:
“What if I have a Windows 10 computer which cannot run Windows 11, but I really want to run Windows 11 on it in a supported way?“
That was what I asked myself when realizing my old Surface Laptop (first generation) does not support Windows 11.
Putting this in maybe a more real-life like scenario “we have some old hardware and Windows 365. We want to keep using the hardware for a few more years but run Windows 11” or something like that.
This gave me an idea. Can we create a kiosk that runs the Windows 365 app only on a managed Windows 10 computer? And to make it more special, let’s make it as a shared device so that I get MY Cloud PC and you get YOUR Cloud PC! 😊
Since Windows 365 Boot is not coming to Windows 10, we need another solution. This solution could be using kiosk mode and shared mode for Windows.
Pre-reqs
What do we need for this to work?
Intune managed Windows 10 computer
Computer registered for Windows Autopilot
Self-deploying deployment profile for Windows Autopilot
Shared device policy
Windows 365 license of some sort
All other licenses required to use Intune
The Remote Desktop application installed on a device
An Azure AD group containing out kiosk PCs
And that is about it.
My thought is to use the old school ShellLauncher method for this, not the fancy assigned app setup since we can make this more dynamic if we want to re-purpose this for another application. This means that we could also use Win32 applications and not only UWP apps.
Using the ShellLauncher method in Intune has gotten really easy, it’s just one custom policy and we are set.
Creating the ShellLauncher script
When looking around for a good source, and inspiration, for this setup I came across this post by Michael Niehaus which is really good and even provides a sample script we can use (why re-invent the wheel?).
Using the script example in the blog above, I came up with this script which you can download from my Github repo.
Basically, what you need to update, is the <Shell> section of this part to the path for your application (Win32) or the AUMID (UWP). In this case, the Windows 365 app for Windows 10 which is a UWP app (as stated in the V2:AppType attribute).
If the remote desktop session is closed, the application will restart.
Creating the ShellLauncher policy
For this, we need to create a custom policy in Intune.
First step is to go to Intune (https://endpoint.microsoft.com) and navigate to Devices > Windows > Configuration profiles and select “+ Create profile“. Select Windows 10 and later as platform, Template as profile type and then the Custom template.
Next, we will give our profile a good name so that we know what the profile does. This should be based on your name standard and naming convention for policies. Then hit next at the bottom of the window.
On the “Configuration settings” tab, select “Add” and give the configuration a name (e.g., ShellLauncher V2). As OMA-URI, enter:
./Device/Vendor/MSFT/AssignedAccess/ShellLauncher
As data type, select “String (XML file)” and upload your XML file. When this is completed, press Save at the bottom of the screen.
You will now see that your setting has been added as a row to this configuration setting and you can press Next at the bottom of the screen.
On the Assignment tab, select the group where you have put you targeted kiosk devices and press Next at the bottom of the screen.
You can skip the “Applicability rules” tab and jump straight to the “Review + create” tab to view a summary of your configuration.
Once you have reviewed your settings, you can press Create and your profile will be created.
Shared device policy
The other profile we need to create is a profile for Shared device. This is done by going to Devices > Windows > Configuration profiles and select “+ Create profile“. Select “Windows 10 and later” as platform, “Templates” as Profile type and find and select “Shared multi-user device” and click create.
Give your profile a name, I will call mine “Win365 Shared Kiosk“. When you have given your profile a name, press next.
On the Configuration settings tab, enable the Shared PC mode and add the settings you need based on your requirements. I will use Domain as Guest account type to ensure that only users from my organization will be allowed to sign in. I will also add some additional settings as you can see from the screen. When you have added your settings, hit next.
Assign your policy to the group you created and used for the ShellLauncher policy and press next.
On the last step, review your settings and click create!
Self-deploying enrollment profile
To have this as a zero-touch installation, which would require zero input from an IT person, we can use the self-deploying deployment profile in Windows Autopilot, which means that we need to create a new profile.
In Intune, head to Devices > Windows > Windows Enrollment > Deployment profiles and select “+ Create profile” and select Windows PC.
First step is as always to give you profile a name, I will call mine “Self deployed Kiosk” and then press next.
On the next tab, select “Self-Deploying (preview)” as Deployment mode. You will then see that almost all fields are grayed out. You can leave all values as default, or choose to change the Language, if keyboard should be automatically configured and if a name template should be used.
Notice: If you are to use this on a virtual machine, you will need to use the user-driver deployment mode since self-deploying requires physical hardware.
For this demo, I will leave everything set to default and press next.
The next step is to set assignments, we will select the Azure AD group we created for the policy for this, but you could also use another group. The important part is that the device is in this group.
Press next and you will end up on the review + create tab where you can review your settings before pressing create.
Once the profile is created, it will take around 15 minutes or so for the enrollment profile to be applied to your device, given that it’s not already included in another active assignment. If that is the case, you need to either add an exclusion group or remove it from the other group before the profile will be assigned.
If you navigate to Devices > Windows > Windows Enrollment > Devices you can look at your device and make sure the correct enrollment profile is assigned.
Deploying our kiosk
This is where the fun begins. Let’s deploy our kiosk to our device!
My device needed to be reset, since it’s already managed by Intune, I can simply just use the wipe command and the device will reset. Since I’ve already added it to the target group for my deployment profile, the enrollment will kick off automatically once the device has been reset. However, if you are connecting using Wi-Fi, you will need to select region, keyboard and Wi-Fi network.
Once the Windows Autopilot enrollment process has completed, my Windows 365 kiosk device is ready, and I can now only run the Windows 365 app on my device.
NOTICE!
There is a big flaw in this design at the moment, and that is the fact that we cannot deploy the W365 application during the ESP at this stage, this means that we need to ensure that the application is installed BEFORE we apply the kiosk profile. If and when we can install the application from the “new store” during ESP, this will not be an issue.
This means that we currently need to wait until the W365 app has been deployed before we assign our kiosk profile.
Okay, I should have done a better title for this. But here we are!
So, 2022 is over and what a year it has been! I honestly don’t remember half of what has happened, but I thought I would do a few personal highlights from the year.
I’M NOW AN MVP
This was the biggest thing for me personally in 2022, that I got awarded as an MVP for my contributions around Windows and Windows 365. I’m truly honored and so grateful to be part of such an awesome group of people!
So far only a few months into the journey, and I’ve gotten to know cool people, participated in really cool events. I hope 2023 has even more to bring in this area!
The fact that during my first week as an MVP I got invited to a small exclusive Microsoft customer connection program summit completely blew me away, and I’m haven’t really been able to wrap my head around this even now.
Microsoft Ignite is back in business
One of the highlights from 2022 was that Microsoft once again hosted a physical Microsoft Ignite. It was different than past years, but it was great to be able to go to Microsoft home turf for an event again! The event being different was probably the big talk afterwards, not meeting everyone’s expectations since the focus this time was to have a hybrid event.
I’m already looking forward to the 2023 edition of Ignite, and I think I will try to be there.
Events, events, events
2022 was for me the year that events were back, and also the year that I entered the stage as a speaker, not only participating. This was a lot of fun and thank you again to Teamsdagen for having me!
There were also a lot of other events, user groups and other recorded sessions which I was invited to, which was a great experience. There are also some stuff which got recorded 2022 which will be released during 2023 which I’m really excited for!
Remote working is here to stay
2022 was also a year that once again proved that remote working and hybrid work is here to stay.
We keep talking about it being “time to go back to the offices”, but I would say it’s rather clear that this is not where the market is heading at the moment, even though some louds voices are doubting this trend. I’ve written numerous posts about this in the past, and this is something I’m still a firm believer in. Hybrid work is the future, and you should go to the office with a purpose!
Windows 365 and Cloud PCs are as you know PCs running in Azure somewhere. But what if you want to control this “somewhere” and pinpoint the region they are running in? You might have noticed that spinning up a Cloud PC in e.g., Western Europe gives you Google and all web-based things in Dutch. This isn’t too convenient for the end-users who doesn’t speak Dutch. So, let’s try to address that and give a more “local” experience.
I’m thinking of putting users in a Windows 365 region as close as possible to them, hopefully even within the same country. And to top it off, let’s provide them with a Windows experience in their local language, just for the sake of it.
How can we achieve this?
Well, we need two things, we need a provisioning profile per country and an Azure AD group which has been populated with users for each country. The region selected in the network for Windows 365 decides in which region the Cloud PC is hosted.
Setting up Azure AD groups
There are as many ways to do this as there are IT pros, but I decided to make this easy and just look at three things for my groups, attributes that I know all my users have.
What I decided to look at is that:
The account is enabled
Usage location for the user is set to Sweden
And the country for the user is set to Sweden
That got me the following query for my dynamic group.
(user.accountEnabled -eq True) and (user.usageLocation -eq "SE") and (user. Country -eq "Sweden")
To create a new group, head to Groups in the Intune portal and create a new group by pressing “New group“.
Give your group a name, in my case I’ve called it “All users Sweden” since we will gather all Swedish users in this group. Also make sure to set “Membership type” to Dynamic User so that we can create a query to automatically populate the group based on user attributes.
Add your query to your group by pressing “Add dynamic query” and enter your rule. You can take my example and modify it if you like, copy the rule syntax above and press “Edit” on the rule syntax windows and paste it there. This will populate the fields for you, and you can modify them to suit your needs. Or create your own! Keep in mind that the usage location uses the two-letter country code e.g., Sweden is SE, Norway is NO, Netherlands is NL, USA is US.
Press Save when you have created, and validated, your rule and press Create.
We have now successfully created a dynamic group which will be populated with all active accounts which has their country and usage location set to Sweden.
Creating provisioning policies
Now that we have our groups, we want to put them to effective use. Let’s head into the Windows 365 pane in Microsoft Intune by navigating to Devices > Windows 365 and selecting the “Provisioning policies” tab. To create a new policy, click the “+ Create policy” button on the ribbon.
First off, as always, we will give our policy a name, in my case I’m giving it a name indicating that this is a Windows 11 image, Azure AD joined and running on Microsoft hosted network. And this is for my Swedish users.
The next step is to select what kind of join type you will use and which network. In this example, I will use Azure AD join and using the Microsoft hosted network. The dreadful thing about using Sweden as an example here is that we don’t have Windows 365 in Sweden Central, so we will use the next best thing. Norway East!
You can do this for Azure v-nets, but then you need to set the region stuff when setting up the Azure v-net. There is a limit to the amount of how many Azure Network Connections (ANC) you can define per tenant, you can find out more here. If you know that you have multiple locations and want to put the service as close as possible to the end-user, it’s much easier to use the Microsoft hosted network.
The next step is to select an image, I will go with a gallery Windows 11 image since this will reduce the amount of maintenance I need to do since Microsoft is curating the image. Press next when you have selected your image.
Next, we will configure language and region settings. Like I said, the ambition here is to provide the Windows 365 experience in the user’s local language. So, for this I will select Swedish for this policy.
In this section, you can also choose to opt-in to Windows Autopatch straight away if you have this enabled in your tenant. If you do not wish to do so, just leave it to the default value. But since I have it activated in my tenant, I will add this as well and then press next.
The next step is to assign this policy to our group created in the first part. If you wish, you can add multiple groups to the same provisioning profile. But I only have one which will be used for this one, so I will select my group with all Swedish users and press next.
Final step is to review the settings we have selected and then press “Create“.
Conclusion
Now when a Windows 365 license is assigned to a user, their Cloud PC will be provisioned in the region based on which provisioning policy they are assigned to using our dynamic Azure AD group.
The groups don’t need to be dynamic and you could just as easily accomplish this using assigned groups. Also, you could utilize this setup to also include e.g., your developers who need access to a specific Azure v-net for example. In this case you would have provisioning profiles connected to those networks instead of the Microsoft hosted network, giving those users access to that network.
Okay let’s face it. The Windows 365 app is just ONE more app to consume our Windows 365 or Cloud PC. But it brings something to the table.
With the Remote Desktop app that we have all learned to connect to our Cloud PCs, AVDs or published apps. And it’s a great app, especially if you work as a consultant like I do and have multiple environments that you connect to, I connect to 2-3 different tenants on a weekly basis. But the Remote Desktop lacks key features when it comes to Windows 365.
If you have ever used Windows 365 through the browser, you know what I’m talking about. There is NO WAY to reboot, restore or troubleshoot a Cloud PC from within the Remote Desktop app, you can simply just connect to your session, and for anymore “advanced” user action you have had to rely on the browser.
Enter the Windows 365 application.
In the Windows 365 app you are able, as in the Remote Desktop app, to connect to your Cloud PCs which are connected to your signed in account. This is the caveat though. Only machines available for the signed in account are displayed, if you are running multiple accounts (like I do) you will have to switch accounts.
However, the features in the Windows 365 app make it worth it, since I can fully control my Cloud PC from within the app, and I don’t have to rely on the website to perform addition actions like I needed previously.
If you have ever used the Windows 365 website to connect to your Cloud PC, you will recognize this experience. The layout is familiar to the web, but you get all the benefits of using the app (like multiple monitors, smart sizing, and Teams optimizations), but you also get the user actions previously exclusive to the web portal.
Working with the Windows 365 app compared to the Remote Desktop app is for me as an end-user not really any different, other the account part mentioned earlier. But if you only use one account, like most are, you will never notice this difference.
You should really check out the new Windows 365 app which is in preview. You can find it on this link or if you search the Microsoft Store for Windows 365. But like always with preview things, be aware that it’s in preview!
So, 2022 was the year Microsoft Ignite was FINALLY a physical event again, and for the first time on Microsoft home turf in Seattle.
Being an ex-Microsoft FTE, this gave me major flashbacks to TechReady, which was an internal training event Microsoft used to host in Seattle. Same location as Ignite, just no hilarious videos with Norm Judah encouraging everyone to fill out the evaluations.
Ignite was different this year since it’s a hybrid event, and the first big such for Microsoft which means that they are still trying out the concept.
Overall, I had a lot of fun. For me, meeting up with peers and having the time to focus on the content is important, if sessions are digital or physical doesn’t really matter. Some sessions made more sense virtually. But in-person sessions are usually the best, and you could really tell that people wanted this. Especially the big keynotes are always more fun in-person.
But I was missing the expo where you can meet vendors or just mingle with Microsoft people, there wasn’t really any space for this, except for an awesome Surface expo.
However, the width that the “old” Ignite had was missing and the break-down sessions were missing. The feeling was that this hybrid thing was more focused on people attending remote, and people on site were more the live audience.
There was a lot of news and I’ve picked out the ones I found most interesting.
Windows
Just before Ignite kicked off, there was a Surface event where some news around Windows 11 was released. Check it out here:
This was released a few days prior to Microsoft Ignite, but Microsoft 365 and Windows 365 will be supported on Meta Quest devices, providing a new kind of experience for productivity in the Metaverse.
This means that you will be able to run a fully supported productivity setup in the Metaverse with e.g., Microsoft Teams and Windows 365. Windows 365 is not yet released for Metaverse, but this indicates strongly which direction VR is heading now.
The Remote Desktop app has for long been the go-to application for your VDIs, but now for Windows 365 you can use the brand-new Windows 365 app which is now in public preview. This app aligns more with the Windows 365 features found on the web portal but with the advantages of the desktop app! Read more here:
Getting messages out to end-users is always a struggle within IT. There is a new feature for Windows 11 where you can send organizational messages, natively in Windows, to your users instead of sending them email using Microsoft Intune coming in November to Windows 11 22h2. Read more here:
The brand Microsoft Endpoint Manager or MEM is going away. The new product-family name will be Microsoft Intune where a bunch of things will be included, Configuration Manager amongst others. You can read more about the anoncment here:
Enabling local admin for users on a temporary basis has been a struggle with Intune managed devices. Old solutions relying on attributes in the on-premises AD do not work and there aren’t really any “best practices” established around this yet.
However, Microsoft is looking to solve this with the Endpoint Privilege Management which is in public preview. Read more in the link above.
Automated app patching as add-on
Keeping applications up to date is something that many stuggles with, and there are products around to solve that. Now Microsoft are throwing themselves into this game as well, which makes a lot of sense. This is just briefly mentioned in the “Further value and looking forward” part of the article, but if they are able to deliver on a native Microsoft Intune feature for this, that would simplify things a lot!
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
Cookie
Duration
Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
