olastrom.com

Author: Ola Ström

  • HoloLens multi-app kiosk

    HoloLens got to be one of the cooler devices out there, but probably also one of the lesser-known devices how to manage.

    What is a HoloLens really?

    HoloLens is Microsoft’s device aimed for Mixed Reality, but at heart, it’s actually a Windows-based device but done in a more modern way. This means that the support for legacy protocols is limited, but also that the level of built-in security is maybe a bit higher than on your Windows-based PC. You can read more about the HoloLens as a platform here.

    Given that it’s a Windows device, we can manage it using basically the same policies in Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) as you would for the rest of your Windows devices. A lot of baseline profiles could be re-used (or duplicated) with ease which simplifies the configuration a bit.

    There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to Microsoft HoloLens 2, which has had an impact on the designs and implementations in my experience.

    • It doesn’t support EPP/EDR software of any kind
    • You can only run UWP based applications
    • You will need additional licenses to run e.g. Remote Assistance

    HoloLens 2 as a kiosk

    There are a lot of different applications and ways to implement and use a HoloLens 2. In this post, I’ll focus on how to set up the HoloLens 2 as a multi-app kiosk, but with user sign-in, using Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

    Importing the device into Windows Autopilot

    If your vendor or retailer didn’t import the HoloLens hardware ID for you, you can do this by following these four simple steps:

    1. While the HoloLens 2 device is powered on, press and release the Power and Volume down buttons together to trigger the hardware ID and diagnostic log collection process.
    2. Connect the HoloLens 2 device to a PC using a USB cable so that it shows up in File Explorer.
    3. Browse to Internal Storage > Documents  and extract AutopilotDiagnostics.zip. This file/folder will contain a CSV file with a a file name that begins “DeviceHash…”.
    4. Upload the CSV file to the Windows Autopilot service

    In order to simplify our management a bit and be able to create a dynamic device group with only HoloLens devices, assign a GroupTag to the device such as “Hololens”.

    Creating a device group for HoloLens

    Like all things in device management, we are really dependent on groups. In this case, we will use a device group to target only our HoloLens devices.

    You can create a new Azure AD group by selecting Groups in the left hand side menu in the MEM portal. Then select “New group“.

    Give your group a good name and select “Dynamic Device” as Membership type.

    Next, click “Add dynamic query” at the bottom and add the following rule syntax, but replace the word Hololens used here with the name of your GroupTag.

    (device.devicePhysicalIds -any _ -eq "[OrderID]:Hololens")

    Click Save followed by Create to finish the creating of the group.

    Setting up enrollment

    First off, we need to create a new Deployment Profile for the HoloLens platform.

    You will find the Deployment Profiles by navigating to Devices > Windows > Windows Enrollment and selecting Deployment Profile.

    When you have selected the Deployment Profiles card, select “+ Create Profile” and choose HoloLens as the platform.

    Give your profile a name in the Basic tab and press next. On the “Out-of-box experience (OOBE)”, you can really only have to change the name template if you are looking to use custom names for your HoloLenses. In my example, I’ve left all values to default. Press next to move to the next tab.

    On the Assignment tab, select your HoloLens device group and press next.

    Review your settings and hit Create to finish the creating of the deployment profile.

    Creating a Filter for HoloLens

    To make sure that we only target settings deployed towards users to their HoloLens devices, we need to create a filter we will use later on.

    Navigate to Tenant administration > Filter. Create a new filter by clicking “+ Create” in the top ribbon. Give your filter a name, such as HoloLens, and select Windows 10 and later as the platform.

    Since filters are kind of like dynamic groups, we need to add a syntax. The easiest way I’ve found to include HoloLens devices is to use our Deployment profile name, the attribute is called EnrollmentProfileName on the device. Enter the name of your Deployment Profile in the Value field.

    Click next, then review and create the filter.

    Configuring kiosk mode

    You could basically already enroll your devices now and be done, but it will be like an unconfigured PC, your end-user will miss vital settings and applications.

    Since this is a Windows-based platform, you can reuse or duplicate profiles you already have for Wi-Fi, certificates, and such. Not all profiles make a whole lot of sense to use on the HoloLens (such as settings for the Office suite or Chrome browser to give some examples).

    The profile we need to create to set up the Kiosk-mode on HoloLens is a profile based on the Kiosk template.

    Go to Devices > Windows > Configuration profiles and create a new profile by pressing “+ Create profile” in the top ribbon. Select Windows 10 and later as platform and Templates as Profile type. Scroll down and find the Kiosk template and click create.

    As always, give your profile a name based on your naming convention on the basic tab and press next.

    Based on your scenario, select either “Single app, full screen” or “Multi app kiosk” as kiosk mode and select “No” on the question if device is running S mode.

    In my scenario, I will configure that users will use the device using their Azure AD accounts. Since I have to specify a group with eligible users, I’ve in my setup used a group containing most of my users meaning that all my users are allowed to sign in to the HoloLens. You can easily assign this to either a group of users or even a specific user. You can also add additional groups and/or users. Depending on your scenario, you can make different choices here.

    Next up is to select what applications we will run on the device. This can be done by either selecting built-in applications or applications distributed through MEM. Keep in mind that Win32 applications DO NOT WORK on the HoloLens when selecting applications.

    If you want to add built-in or system applications, this is done by adding the AUMID of the application. You can find all the HoloLens 2 applications AUMID on this MSFT Docs site.

    In this example, I will add one built-in application and one store app. You add apps by pressing the “Add…” button under the Browser and application section.

    When adding a app by using AUMID, you give the application a name (preferably what it’s called in the reference document) and the AUMID for the application.

    When adding a store app, MEM will list the apps you have available for distribution. Also, keep in mind that you will need to make sure to target the application distribution towards the HoloLens group.

    Leave the rest of the settings to the default value and click Next.

    In order for the Kiosk mode to function properly when requiring Azure AD users to sign in, the profile needs to be targeted toward users otherwise nothing will happen in my experience. If you are not doing personal logins, you can target this towards a device group.

    In order to not assign the Kiosk-mode to all the user’s devices, we will need to use a filter to limit what devices the profile is assigned to.

    On the Assignment tab, select your group of users who will be allowed to use the HoloLens and then press “Edit filter” next to the group.

    Select “Include filtered devices in assignment” and choose your filter then press Select.

    Press next and leave the Application Rules to blank and review and create your profile.

    Enroll and sign in!

    Now it’s time to enroll your device, simply start the device and follow the on-screen instructions.

    What I’ve seen is that sometimes, the kiosk mode does not kick in on the first login after enrollment. If this happens, simply sign in and out of the device, this has done the trick for me!

  • Tip of the week – Backgrounds in Teams mobile app

    One feature I really like in Teams on the desktop is the possibility to use different backgrounds in a meeting, to have your video background blurred or replaced by a picture. I think we all are familiar with this feature.

    Now, this feature has finally reached mobile devices, which in my world could be really useful since you tend to be out and about while on your mobile device.

    It’s really easy to get started with and to me, it’s really useful. I tend to connect through my phone when I’m out and about which then can remove any messy background since it’s not a controlled environment like my home office.

    How to enable it?

    When you connect to a meeting, you will get a new option at the top of the screen called “Background effects”.

    When you click that, you will get the option to select a blurred background, a Teams standard background, or a custom background.

    My personal favorite to use is the blurred background since it doesn’t take any attention from me so to speak. It makes it easier to focus.

    But you could just as easily upload a picture from your camera roll and use that. Like faking you are out on the golf course.

  • Tip of the week – Focus mode in Microsoft Word

    Focusing while writing a long Word document can be really hard sometimes with distractions from other applications and windows. Or you just want to focus on the text and not the buttons around it.

    Enter Focus mode. This isn’t a new feature, but I actually just learned about it.

    Enabling focus mode

    To enable focus mode you can either select View in the ribbon and then find Focus.

    Or you can click “Focus” at the bottom of the window and this will also enable Focus mode Word.

    When you enable Focus, Word will automatically go into full-screen mode, but you can still access the ribbon by moving your mouse to the top of the screen.

    To exit out of the focus mode, you simply click the button again or just press the ESC button on your keyboard.

    Changing backgroun color

    When working on a Word document, you typically have some blank space around the document. Your background basically. This is usually white or black, depending on if you use dark mode or not.

    By using Focus mode, you can actually change this color!

    IMPORTANT NOTE: If you change the color of the background this will stick and you can only change it from within focus mode. However, when closing Word this will be reset back to default.

    There are a few different colors to pick from, but they are quite nice!

  • Remove Quick Assist

    Updated on the 29th of September 2022 due to changes in Quick Assist installation.

    Like I mentioned in the blogpost about Remote Help, the build in Quick Assist tool in Windows 10 and Windows 11 is great for supporting friends and family. However, it’s not that great to support an organization since vital features are missing like handling UAC and logging. There is also a lot to wish for when it comes to how accounts are managed and the overall experience in a corporate setup using Quick Assist.

    So, when we have deployed Remote Help to all our users, we want to remove Quick Assist to improve security (so unauthorized people cannot remotely connect) and to ease confusion about what remote support tool to use.

    There are several ways of doing this, but I’m taking the approach that we don’t have a custom image since our devices has been enrolled through Windows Autopilot using vanilla images. So how can we remove the feature, and make sure that the end-user doesn’t get creative with enabling it again?

    The answer to this is using proactive remediations.

    What is proactive remediations?

    Proactive remediations is a part of the Endpoint analytics section of Microsoft Endpoint Manager. You can find it by going to Reports > Endpoint Analytics > Proactive Remediations. By default you will have to script packages published by Microsoft.

    Proactive Remediations is a script package where you can find and fix things on your clients, before this generates a ticket to your help desk.

    However, since these are scripts running, you can do about anything to be honest. Each script package consists of a detection script and a remediation script. The scripts are then deployed to the devices through MEM and will report back. You can find reports on how many times a script has run, and how many times it has fixed an issue. Fixed and issue means that it has run the remediation script. You can read more about how they work and what you can do on e.g. Microsoft Docs.

    One thing you could do is to detect if a Windows component is active, and if found active then disable it.

    How do I remove new Quick Assist?

    Due to an update, Quick Assist have now moved in to the Microsoft Store, meaning that we need a new way to remove the store app. Next chapter will cover the old application which was a Windows Capability.

    There are several ways to remove pre-installed application from Windows, you could either get the application from the Business Store and assign it as “Uninstall” for all devices/users, or you could user PowerShell to remove applications.

    For this, we will use Proactive Remediation to detect if the Quick Assist is installed, and if so we will remove it. This would remove the application even if the user installs it them self. There are other ways to do this as well, like only deploying the removal part and blocking the application with AppLocker.

    I’ve put these scripts in my GitHub repository, for this part use the *_app files.

    First we will do detection:

    WinCap = Get-AppxPackage -name "MicrosoftCorporationII.QuickAssist"

try {
If ($WinCap.Name -like "*MicrosoftCorporationII.QuickAssist"){
Write-Warning "Quick Assist installed - running remediation script"
Exit 1
}
Else{
Write-Host "Quick Assist missing - exiting"
Exit 0
}
}
catch {
Write-Host "Quick Assist missing - exiting"
Exit 0
}

    If our detection script finds the application, we will run a remediation script to uninstall it, just two lines of simple PowerShell code (thanks @LasseiLarod for the contribution to this).

    $WinCap = Get-AppxPackage -name "MicrosoftCorporationII.QuickAssist"
Remove-AppxPackage -package $WinCap.PackageFullName

    Now all that we need to do is to make sure that we run the script in User Context, since the application is installed in the user context.

    How do I remove old Quick Assist?

    One way to disable Quick Assist, even if the user enables it again, I have found is to use a proactive remediation which checks if Quick Assist is enabled on the device, and if it finds that it is Quick Assist is disabled.

    Quick Assist isn’t an app installed from the store, it’s a Windows capability which means that we cannot uninstall the app.

    To do this, we firstly need a script which will identify if Quick Assist is enabled. One way of setting that up is like this, a simple PowerShell script that my college helped me create (thank you Daniel).

    I’ve put these scripts in my GitHub repository.

    $WinCap = Get-WindowsCapability -online -name App.Support.QuickAssist*

If ($WinCap.State -match "NotPresent"){
    Write-Warning "Windows Capability - Quick Assist missing - exiting"
    Exit 0
}
else {
    Write-Host "Windows Capability - Quick Assist installed, Running Remediation script"
    Exit 1
}

    This simple script will check if the Windows capability is enabled, if enabled it will run the remediation script which disables Quick Assist. It’s a one-liner:

    Remove-WindowsCapability -online -name App.Support.QuickAssist~~~~0.0.1.0

    What could be good to keep in mind is that if the version of Quick Assist changes, this disable-part will stop working. I’ve’ tried using a more generic string, but I couldn’t get it to work. However, my PowerShell skills are quite limited.

  • RBAC in Intune- Who does what at the zoo

    One thing that is important when working with IT infrastructure is to set the right level of permissions for the right people. Principle of least privilege is a good rule of thumb to follow, also in Microsoft Endpoint Manager.

    It’s quite easy to just say that “okay, all admins gets the administrator role” which make everyone equal. But is it a good idea? No.

    Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) has a quite extensive Role Based Access Control (RBAC) function built in, and there are also Azure roles which applies to MEM. There is also the possibility to create your own custom roles if you want to define the roles yourself, or if you want to limit one of the built in.

    Why use RBAC?

    There is a simple answer to this. Improve security. Granting admin permissions to everyone administrating the system isn’t necessary. Your level of permissions should be related to what task you are performing. A Help Desk operator does not have the same needs as a third level support engineer; hence they should not have the same level of access.

    Aiming for the principle of least privilege when looking at how to administrate MEM is important and implementing it at an early stage so that you assign roles accordingly.

    For certain scenarios, there might be a need for users to have additional levels of access, being able to elevate Intune admin for example through Privileged Identity Management (PIM) but having a less privileged access as their normal level. Please note however, that PIM is an Azure AD P2 feature which you will need to make sure you are licensed for (it’s included in EMS and M365 E5 license SKU, but not in the E3 SKU).

    Quick and dirty setup

    So how to get going? One efficient way of doing it, which I like, is to firstly identify what roles you have in your organization and then map out what roles they should have. I prefer doing this in Excel, just listing the roles and then look at what Azure AD roles are related to MEM and then add the built in MEM roles. Then just simply add an X on who should have what roles. As you see in the example down below, some operational roles have several X in their row.

    This should be adopted towards your organization and roles named what you are calling them.

    Update: You can find my example Excel here.

    Can I use PIM?

    Using PIM, especially for admin roles should be a default when you are setting this up. You will need additional licenses, but you will not need this for all users only your admin users.

    For Azure AD you can use PIM without any hassle, it’s easy to setup and you can set it to automatic approvals. Have look at this Microsoft Docs article on how to do it!

    I would suggest having PIM for all roles which are called admin, so for MEM specific roles that is the Intune Administrator role and the Azure AD Joined Device Local Administrator role, but there are additional roles related to this area.

    When it comes to using PIM on MEM specific roles, this isn’t as straight forward. You will need to take a different approach. PIM for Intune roles could be argued how beneficial this is, but it does improve security and resilience. However, you need to use a preview feature for this called Privileged Access Groups which is a part of PIM, and you will need to make sure to enable your Azure AD group for role assignment when creating it (this can’t be added creating the group). The people over at MSEndpointManager.com have create a great guide about how to set this up.

    But in short what you need to do is to create a group which is enabled for Azure AD roles assignment.

    Then enable Privileged Access on the group you created to add it to PIM.

    Then you can assign your role in MEM to this group.

    In this example I’m assigning PIM to my Help Desk Operator role.

    Doing this, you could potentially enable PIM for all your MEM roles. I would however not use PIM for roles which are read only roles.

    Key takeaway

    There are a bunch of built-in roles in MEM which covers most scenarios. However, there might be instances where you need to tweak this a little bit. A good example of this is the Remote Help role which I wrote about in my previous post. Remote Help might be useful for people who are not working in Intune as part of their daily job, this could be application specific support personal for example who don’t need access in MEM but have the need to remotely support their users.

    Getting RBAC in place at an early stage will simplify operations and getting the right permissions for everyone involved down the line, and you will decrease misshappenings. Or just simply shadow IT doing their own thing in your controlled environment without change control or the approvals from the governance forums.

  • Microsoft Remote Help tool

    It finally happened. Microsoft released their own remote assistance tool called Remote Help at Ignite during the fall 2021. It was to be honest one of the things I got most excited about.

    Licenses are still a bit unclear around this, Microsoft says it’s free to use during the preview but will come at an additional fee once GA hits. What this license model will look like, no one seems to really know at this point. So please be aware of that the licensing will change and that this is still public preview before putting this into production.

    But the fact that it´s in public preview means that you can start assessing it and see if it will fulfil your needs!

    The setup

    To get going, you basically sign in to Microsoft Endpoint Manager, navigate to Tenant Administration > Connectors and Tokens > Remote Help and select Enable under the Settings tab.

    And now it’s enabled!

    You will also need to assign the correct rights to your support personal. If you are using the built in roles in Intune for this, this role is enabled by default for:

    • School administrator
    • Help Desk operator
    • Intune admin

    If you want to add this role to a role, or create a specific custom role for Remote Help, you can do so by creating a new role and adding the Remote Help app” rights to that user.

    You can create custom roles by going to Tenant administration > Roles and then select “+ Create“.

    You will then have to assign your new role to an Azure AD group containing the users you want to add this role to by selecting Assignments on your newly created role and then “+ Assign”.

    Give the assignment a name:

    Add the group of users you want to assign this role to:

    On the next blade you can select the scope for your support personal. You could for example only allow this group to remotely support a specific group of devices. But in this setup, I’m using “All devices” as the scope group.

    If you are not using scope tags, just press next and then create your assignment.

    Remote help app

    The other part of this solution is the Remote Help app which you will need to distribute to your users.

    To get the app, you simply download it from Microsoft at aka.ms/downloadremotehelp and you will get the application file.

    Next step is to get this out to your computers through Intune, which means that you would need to package this as an Win32 app in Intune. Best way to do so is by using the IntuneWinAppUtil tool.

    And create a detection rule based on that a file exist.

    Once you have packaged it, uploaded it and distributed it to your clients, you are ready to go!

    The experience

    To connect, the admin or support personal needs to have the Remote Help app installed on their device (which should be deployed from Intune).

    To launch a remote session with a user, there are two ways you can go at it. You as an admin can navigate to the device in the Microsoft Endpoint Management portal and go to Devices > Windows > Windows devices and find the device you want to support. On the device ribbon (where you see “Retire, Wipe, Delete”) find the three dots and select “New remote assistance session” and then click “Launch remote help”. This will open the Remote Help app.
    Update: This being preview and all, it seems like the experience has changed a bit since when I originally started setting this up in my lab. The proper way to initiate a remote session is to go through the app, not Microsoft Intune. Check out the updated Docs for more information.

    To initiate a remote session, launch the Remote Help app from your computer.

    The first time you launch Remote Help, you will be asked to sign in and accept the user agreement.

    Once signed in, you get a similar experience as the Quick Assist app where you can either choose to get or give help.

    To give help, you simply select “Get a security code” which will generate a code that you can provide to the user you are helping.

    When you have generated the code, share it the user you are helping. When the user enters the code in the “Get help” section, the admin will get a prompt showing which user they are trying to connect to, and they can select if they want to take full control or just view the screen.

    Based on the support persons selection, the user will get a prompt showing who is going to help them and to allow or cancel their request to connect.

    As you can see below, Remote Help will prompt if the device you are connecting to is not compliant and you can choose to either accept or leave the session since this could mean an increased risk. This status is also shown in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager portal on the device.

    And now we can see the user’s desktop and perform our remote support tasks!

    One little nice feature I found was that there is some options to do annotations on the users screen if you want to guide them to do something, and there is also a message feature you can send a receive messages in.

    Why use Remote Help

    What sets Remote Help apart from e.g. Quick Assist in Windows is that it’s built for enterprises, not consumer. This means that you have more control and possibilities, such as using corporate credentials and being able to accept UAC prompts with your admin credentials.

    One other major thing here is that logging. You can see who helped whom and when.

    You can also easily monitor how much the remote help is being utilized.

    You can find all these things from Tenant Administration > Connectors and tokens > Remote Help (Preview).

    Additional thoughts

    I’m a huge fan of this new product and I’m really excited to see what this will become once general available.

    One thing that could be a good idea is to remove the Quick Assist app if you have that installed on your device, to reduce confusion but also to improve security a little bit since with the Quick Assist anyone can remote your users’ computers if they are not cautious. This can easily be done by deploying a PowerShell script to the devices.

    Remove-WindowsCapability -online -name App.Support.QuickAssist~~~~0.0.1.0

    Quick Assist isn’t built for enterprise use but is a great tool to support family and loved ones to be honest (I use it often to support family members).

  • Exclude devices from profile

    One of the most common ways to assign Windows Autopilot profiles is to use the wildcard argument for Autopilot devices in an dynamic Azure AD group:

    device.devicePhysicalIds -any (_ -contains "[ZTDId]")

    This is a powerful way of gathering all devices imported to Autopilot into a single group to assign either enrollment profiles, configuration profiles or even applications without the need for any additional work or use of group tags.

    However, this group being powerful makes things a bit harder when it comes to excluding devices that might need a different enrollment profile for testing, different device type or just a different use case.

    There are different ways of doing this, but this is the way I found that works well and it assumes that you have another Azure AD group which you use to assign Enrollment Profiles, dynamic or assigned.

    Let’s say we have two enrollment profiles:

    • Production profile
    • HoloLens profile

    The “Production profile” is assigned using a group called “All Autopilot devices” which gets devices using the “device.devicePhysicalIds -any (_ -contains “[ZTDId]”)” string to gather all devices which are imported to the environment.

    We have also imported the HoloLens devices in to our device list for Autopilot, which we are using a group tag to populate our “HoloLens devices” group with which is then used to assign the HoloLens profile.

    Now comes the tricky part. Since we have the “catch all” group already, that will include the HoloLens’s which means that we will assign configuration profiles and applications that are assigned using that group.

    Since our HoloLens’s are a different type of devices, we want to assign a separate set of configuration profiles and applications towards them, meaning that we need to exclude them from the “All Autopilot devices” group and add them a HoloLens specific group to assign our HoloLens profile.

    Creating out groups

    To add them to the HoloLens deployment profile you can create a dynamic group which is using Group Tags to populate. This will require you to add this group tag to all your HoloLens’s. In this case, we will use the Group Tag “Hololens”.

    (device.devicePhysicalIds -any _ -eq "[OrderID]:Hololens")

    This will assign the HoloLens specific deployment profile to the device.

    However, we also want to make sure that we do not include these devices in the bigger group which is used to assign the “regular” Windows policies. This was a bit trickier than I thought to be honest.

    After playing around with excluding the group tag, which for some reason didn’t work that great, the most effective way was to exclude devices from my big “All Autopilot devices” group by using the fact that it has a deployment profile assigned to it. This value can be used in the rules for the group by saying that we don’t want to include devices having a deployment profiled called “Autopilot HoloLens” assigned to them.

    device.enrollmentProfileName -ne "Autopilot HoloLens"

    The outcome

    By changing the rule to say that in addition to “catch all” also no include anything that has the deployment profile “Autopilot HoloLens” assigned to it, we will now have a group which will exclude all HoloLens devices!

    This can of course be used for other things than HoloLens, it applies for anything that has a deployment profile assigned to it.

    There are other ways to accomplish this, but this is the easiest way I’ve found so far!

  • Ignite reflections

    Ignite reflections

    Ignite 2021 Fall edition is over, and I honestly needed some time to process what was announced.

    This year time there was quite a lot of things around device for once, but the general “Teams Teams Teams Teams” was gone and was more “MFA MFA MFA MFA” to quote a former colleague.

    I think one of the bigger things with Ignite this time was not that there were a bunch of new cool things (even though that was awesome). The biggest thing was that you could start to see the synergies and relations between several products that has felt disconnected. It was no longer “yet another collaboration tool” when they announced Microsoft Loop, it integrates to existing things like Outlook or Teams. Microsoft Loops builds on the fluid framework which was introduced a while back and has now become something! That was my biggest take away this time, that now we are starting to see a more connected range of products again. This was referred to during Ignite as digital fabric, so a new cool buzz-word to use!

    There was also some sweet news in the device management area, like a remote assistance tool from Microsoft (finally) and welcomed additions to Windows 365 like Azure AD Join.

    In case you missed it, here is the Book of news containing all new cool things!

    I’ve gathered a list of my highlights down below.

    Device stuff

    My top 5 from a device perspective:

    I’ll also include a link to the summary of all things MEM related, you can find it here!

    Microsoft 365 stuff

    My top 5 from a Microsoft 365 perspective:

    • Microsoft Loop – The fluid framework has gotten a new name and practical application which integrates into other M365 services
    • Teams updates – It’s not Ignite without Teams updates. I think the coolest one was the Mesh support, but also Shared Channels which improved the experience when working with external parties
    • Updates to OneDrive – OneDrive for macOS will get an improved user experience and support for ARM. OneDrive will also get support for Universal Print
    • ClipChamp – Okay, this was a little outside the box, but Microsoft announced ClipChamp which is a new video editing app
    • Microsoft Viva – Microsoft Viva, which I found very interesting after the spring edition of Ignite, has reached General Availablity.

    And of course, the overview for Microsoft 365 which you can find here!

  • CloudLAPS on CloudPC?

    So I’ve been playing around a bit with Windows 365 Enterprise and thinking about “okay, what cool things should we try?”.

    First step is of course to set it up and I thought about writing a guide about that. Halfway through my guide I realised that the one written by Christiaan Brinkhoff was far superior to mine, so go check his guide out!

    One thing came to mind however, could you get CloudLaps to work on a Cloud PC?

    Of course, we needed to try this even though I’m not a 100% sure that you need it.

    What CloudLaps does it that it provides your PCs with a unique, randomized password for the local admin account on the machines which is rotated on a given interval (default is every 3 days). By using this functionality, all your PCs will have unique passwords for their local admin accounts meaning that if this is handed out to an end-user or support personal, the password will stop working when the password is updated.

    The Cloud PC configuration

    If you have not yet implemented CloudLaps, have a look at the guide in the link above, but if you have it in place, you are ready to go.

    Since CloudLaps is built on proactive remediations in Microsoft Intune, you will need to make sure that the Cloud PCs are included in the assignment by using (or adding) a group containing all your Cloud PCs. Windows 365 Enterprise gives you the benefit that Cloud PCs are being automatically enrolled into Microsoft Intune which gives you the possibility to manage them directly without any further actions!

    In this example, all the Cloud PCs are included in the same group as all other PCs since we want all these PCs to have the same settings. This was done by adding an extra rule to our Dynamic Group.

    device.deviceModel -contains "Cloud PC Enterprise"

    No additional configuration needed!

    The outcome

    The outcome of this test was as expected, worked perfectly fine!

    A local admin password is populated in the CloudLaps portal, and I can use it on the machine to elevate my rights on the Cloud PC.

    Since you can use the exact same configuration for Cloud PCs as physical PCs, you will not need to separate how you manage the Cloud PCs. They are just another PC, but in the cloud!

  • Trying to understand Windows 365

    Trying to understand Windows 365

    You know, devices and new stuff are always fun. But what if you would provide a kick-ass, safe, Windows experience on any device without having to invest in infrastructure or administrative work? To semi-quote on of my all-time favourite TV-show: “Haaaave you met W365” (it’s supposed to be Ted, not W365).

    Have You Met Ted GIFs | Tenor

    I remember hearing about the new Windows Virtual Desktop at Ignite 2018 and thinking “Wow, this is sooo cool! Finally, someone simplified the complexity of VDI solutions a little!”

    It was not perfect, but it had potential! Up until then Azure hadn’t really provided any good solutions for Windows 10 based clients. You could run Windows clients if you imported an image, but it was far from great. It was more for playing around with Windows.

    Windows Virtual Desktop later became Azure Virtual Desktop, but it required a decent amount of work to set up initially. Don’t get me wrong, it’s super awesome given the flexibility it provides you could run anything on it. But it comes with a big challenge, especially if you are not familiar with VDIs. It requires a decent amount of configuration before you can get going. The Azure Virtual Desktop is however GREAT for scenarios where users don’t need a dedicated machine, their session can run in a host pool to make the most out of your Azure resources!

    Windows 365 enters the stage

    Microsoft announced Windows 365 during the summer 2021 (I remember noticing it during my summer vacation). I had a really hard time positioning this compared to the AVD solution, when should I pick what?

    But finally, the coin dropped for me. Windows 365 is for when you just need a virtual computer with no super specific needs (since the configurations are a set list). Like for instance you have a consultant working in your company who already has their own device which they can run a Windows 365 machine on, instead of you having to source and ship a physical device.

    Current sizing of Windows 365

    It also has the quite nice feature of being simple to assign and setup since you assign a provisioning policy and a license to the end user, and you are good to go! This is truly VDI made for the masses if you ask me.

    Of course, there are things you need to setup if you are running this in an enterprise, such as the network connectivity and on-premises domain connection (yes you sadly still need an on-premises AD and hybrid join for this in the enterprise setup, but AAD only is coming). You would also need to setup management profiles in Microsoft Intune or just reuse the ones you have for your physical machines. In Microsoft Intune, the Cloud PC is just a computer amongst all the others, but model will be Cloud PC instead of e.g. Surface Laptop.

    Coming from a device management background, I also really love that you manage everything from the Microsoft Endpoint Management portal, no other fancy tools needed or a need to find your way around the Azure portal!

    Who should use a Cloud PC?

    So, who is the Windows 365 Cloud PC for really? Saying everyone is not the wrong answer, but when you face reality and leave the marketing slides behind, you will notice that most of your users don’t need this. But some absolutely do, and those are in this case the interesting users.

    In the perfect of worlds, you could easily “only” have Cloud PCs and let your users use whatever device they want to access those. In an enterprise scenario, with a lot of history, which would not be feasible. At least not for your FTEs to start with unless you provide them with more lightweight devices and provide a beefier Cloud PC to do their work on.

    In the scenarios I mostly have seen and discussed, there is one main use case we are discussing, and that is consultants who already has a computer (or device for that matter) and instead of providing them with a 5-year-old computer which got put in the spare pile you give them a virtual machine which they can access from their PC. This scenario is also valid for providing consultants with a more basic PC and “beef” it up using a powerful Cloud PC.

    One thing I find useful is that you can run either Windows 10 or Windows 11 on it, you select the image yourself. This means that you could potentially have your physical machine on Windows 10 but run your virtual machine with Windows 11. This could be beneficial in a transition period from Windows 10 to 11 if you want to do some application testing without needing to re-install computers.

    I’ll keep exploring Windows 365, and I’m really hoping Ignite will bring more cool stuff around for it!