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Tag: cloud pc

  • Windows 365 Link – What’s the fuzz all about?

    Windows 365 Link – What’s the fuzz all about?

    One of the things that it felt like a lot of people during Microsoft Ignite were really excited about, at least people working in the device management space, was the announcement of Windows 365 Link. A small black box with the Microsoft logo on it.

    Front and side view of Windows 365 Link device (cube shape)

    What I do think, after seeing a lot of posts on social media about it, is that some people didn’t exactly get what it is (but they were still excited). There were talk about “What’s the performance on this thing?”, “Can I use it as a media center?” and “Those are only legacy ports”.

    Well this isn’t your regular computer. This is what the IT business has defined as a thin client for several years, but done in a more Microsoft way! And that is actually the reason I’m excited. It’s a Microsoft device, running Windows, which we can use for ONLY connecting to the Windows 365.

    Let’s dig into what this device is, and what it isn’t!

    What it is and what it isn’t

    So let’s start of by talking about what this device is.

    This is a small, fanless, computer made out of 90-100% recycled material (90% recycled aluminum, 100% recycled copper and  96% recycled tin solder). It also runs Windows, but not your regular Windows 11. This runs a special version called Windows CPC which has been developed specifically for this device. The Windows CPC operating system is stripped of all things that are not needed to keep the device secure and being able to use Windows 365. So if you where hopeing that you would get the Microsoft version of a Mac Mini, I’m afraid you will be disapointed. If you had you hopes up that this would be your new NUC or media PC, you will have to rethink why you should get this device.

    It’s also has a lot of what some people would concider “legacy” ports. But imagine the usecase for this. Maybe a call center, hot desking scenario or maybe even a sales station. If we take an honest look at what our perifirals are using today out in the business, we will see a lot of USB type A cabels for our mouse, keyboards and headsets. So keeping in mind where this device belongs, it makes sense at least to me since we will see USB type A for a forseeable future in those scenarios.

    I think what is important to point out as well is that this device is secure by default. All applicable secuirut features (TPM, Bitlocker, SecureBoot, Hypervisor Code Integrity, Defender for Endpint) are enabled and CANNOT be turned off. This to make sure that this device is as secure as can be at all points. We can also use FIDO keys to easily sign into our Windows 365 session!

    But I want to manage this thing!

    Like I said, this is a purpose built device for Windows 365 and what makes it special is that its running a specialized version of Windows. This also means that we can manage it from Microsoft Intune. No need to have yet another tool to manage your thin clients. For me, not beeing a hardcore EUC person, this is a kille feature.

    In my experiance, a lot of device management teams always strive to minimize and optimize the amount of tools used to manage the workplace. If we can have everything in Microsoft Intune, that is a strong selling point in my book. I understand that others might not feel this way, but let’s face it, there are a lot of other great products that you can use in that case! Same thing goes for if you are looking to use this for Azure Virtual Desktop or DevBox. This is Windows 365 only.

    Given that it’s Windows based and we can manage it from Microsoft Intune, guess how we onboard this device? Ofcourse we will use Windows Autopilot. In the demos shown at Ignite, this process was very fast since not that much needs to happen. It will be very interesting seeing this one in live action when released!

    When can I get my hands on this device?

    Microsoft announced at Microsoft Ignite 2024 that this device will be launhed in public preview in January 2025, and to get in the preview you will need to talk to your Microsoft sales contacts. The launch of this device in general availability will be around April in 2025 and will cost $349.

    Screenshot of Windows 365 Link device (cube shape) between and connected to two monitors

    The announced countires which will initially be supported in the preview are United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

    So getting your hands on this device might not be that easy, but worth a try if you have some awesome usecases you want to use this in. It has great potential, but for some really specific usecases. I’m not seeing this as the device for all information workers, but it could be a great fit for frontline workers who comes and goes, especially between different places.

    If you want to read more about the Windows 365 Link, check out the Microsoft blog post which was released during Microsoft Ignite.

    My thoughts on the Windows 365 Link

    So what are my thoughts on this device?

    In my world this will simplify the adoption of virtual clients even more for a lot of organizations. Organizations already running VDIs and have a big infrastructure in place around thin clients might just say that “we have been doing this for X amount of years, this isn’t new”. Then this device might not be for you initially to be honest.

    But if you are looking into moving into a virtualization space, or want to get rid of those dreadfull shared computers your frontline workers are using. This is a very easy way forward if you combine it with Windows 365 Frontline!

    Microsoft is also pushing a lot for sustainability with the Windows 365 Link, and it’s great that this has been a big part of the product development (I love it). But let’s face it, the best option from a sustainability perspective is to re-use old hardware that you already have, and there are great options to do this using e.g. IGEL OS or simply build a Windows based kiosk device.

    But if you want to keep everything in Microsoft Intune and don’t really have any old hardware you can repurpose, this is a great option. I’m really curious to see how this device performs out in the wild, and how the look and feel is.

    Oh and did you notice that I didn’t mention any hardware specs? Well since we will run everything in the cloud, that doesnt really matter to be honest as long as it’s powerfull enought. My guess is that the public preview being launched will show if that is the case or not!

  • Let’s improve onboarding for Windows 365!

    Let’s improve onboarding for Windows 365!

    Through out the years, I’ve worked with a lot off different customers, and almost all of them use some kind of ITSM tool (such as Jira ServiceNow) to order new services and hardware for users. This is usually where Windows 365 is added as a service where I as an end user, or manager, can request it.

    But what if you don’t have an ITSM tool, but I still want to offer the self-service option?

    Well, in Entra ID there is something called “Access packages” which we can use for this puropse. If you want to read more about what that is, check out the Microsoft documentation here.

    With Access packages, we can create a self-service portal, where end-users can request memebership to a group. This group can then have a license tied to it, what is also known as Group Based Licensing. The user will then request membership to the group, you can add approvals and set a time frame that this membership should be valid. You can also add access reviews to check in with the user to see if they are still using the service.

    So let’s jump into how an easy setup of this would look like, and then have a look at the user experiance. However, this setup is assuming you have already setup group based licensing for Windows 365.

    This setup also assumes that you are targeting provisining policies to all users already (I’m using dynamic, country based groups as descibed in this post).

    Setting upp Access packages

    To set up access packages, we head into the Entra portal (https://entra.microsoft.com) and navigate to Identity > Identity Governance > Entitlement Management and then look for “Access packages” in the menu.

    We will just create a very basic setup for this, so lets go ahead and click on “+ New Access Package“. First step is to give your policy a name and descripton. Remeber, the description is a required field. We will leave the catalog to “General” which is the default value. When done, hit next on the bottom of the windows.

    Since we want to configure a memebership to a group, select the option “+ Groups and Teams” and find

    Since we are just going with default values, you might need to check the “See all Groups and Teams…” check-box in order to find your group. When you have found the group, click select. If you are not already targeting users with a provisioning group, you need to add that here as well.

    When you have added your group, remeber to change the Role to member before hitting next.

    In the next step, we will define our Request flow. In this example I will make this apply for all users in my tenant, and I will allow all users to place a request.

    The next part is to define the approval process. You can also remove approvals completely, but since Windows 365 comes with a cost we want a manager to approve this request. You can also add additional approvers if required. Default value is that manager will be the approved, and we will leave it to default. What you need to add is a “fallback” approver, and as you can see here I added my Help Desk team for this. Choose an approriate user/group for this task.

    Last step on this section, is to select how we will enable this request flow. I’ve also enabled the preview features for this example, but you dont need to do that. Just make sure to enable the top one since this is what makes this request available. We will skip the Verified ID part and press the Next button.

    On this step, we could add additional questions or justifications for the requestor, but we will leave this to default and press next. We will still get a question for business justification in the request.

    Next step is to set the lifecycle for this, which we in this case will set to 180 days since that is roughly 6 months. And just for the purpose of usign access reviews, we will enable that as well but leave all values to default. When you are done, press next until you reach “Review + Create“.

    On the last step, you can review all your settings before pressing Create. It will validate your configuration, and if you missed something or something is wrong it will ask you to correct this before moving forward.

    We have now successfully create a Access package for our Cloud PCs!

    Let’s have a look at what this looks like when a user requests this.

    The request flow

    The place where you need to direct your users for placing requests is https://myaccess.microsoft.com/ where they will see all available request packages for them. As you can see, I have three different access packages for Cloud PC I can request. To start a request, I simply click on “Request” on the service I want to request.

    This windows will then appear, and you just click continue.

    Next step is to add a business justification for my request, here I can also set it to a specific period if I like since we enabled that option when setting things up.

    I then submit the request and it is sent of to the approver, which in this case is the manager.

    Approver experiance

    When the request has been sent, the approved will recieve an email looking like this, where they are asked to approve the request. This email also contains the business justification added by the requestor.

    When the approver clicks the blue button in the email, they are redirected to the approval site on My Access.

    When the approved selects to approve the request, they will be asked to enter a justification before approval is sent.

    When the approver has approved the request, a confirmation email will be sent to the user. However, what is imporant to keep in mind is that this will initiate the provisioning of the Cloud PC.

    The process of provisioning will now start and the Cloud PC will be done within usually 30-40 minutes depending on how fast your provisining policy is!

    Key take aways

    Estalishing a good on- and off-boarding process is important in all IT organsations. This walk though shows you that you can establish this without setting up more advanced tools. However, this is not close to as powerful as proper ITSM tools, but you can build simpler request flows to suite your needs.

    This principle can also be applied to other things, not just Windows 365 and Cloud PCs.

  • Slimcore: Revolutionizing Teams for VDI Environments

    Slimcore: Revolutionizing Teams for VDI Environments

    Last week, Microsoft dropped a bombshell with the release of Slimcore for Teams, specifically designed for VDI environments. Let’s unpack what this means for us and how it can supercharge our virtual desktops.

    What is Slimcore?

    Slimcore is the new media engine for Teams, tailored for VDI setups like Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. It’s packed with improvements that make Teams more efficient and user-friendly in virtual environments. No longer is the Teams client for VDI a long lost cousin of Teams, now we will see feature parity!

    Key Features and Benefits

    So what are the key features and benefits with moving to Slimcore from WebRTC?

    • Enhanced Performance: Slimcore cuts down on resource consumption, leading to faster call setup times and smoother performance. This is a game-changer for those of us juggling multiple virtual desktops.
    • High-Fidelity Media: Enjoy top-notch audio and 1080p video at up to 30fps. This ensures our meetings and presentations are crystal clear, even in a virtual setup.
    • Advanced Meeting Capabilities: Features like gallery view, custom backgrounds, and presenter mode are now available, making our virtual meetings more interactive and engaging.
    • Auto-Updates: The decoupled architecture allows for quicker feature rollouts without needing to overhaul the entire VDI infrastructure. Staying current with the latest features has never been easier.

    Installing Slimcore on Windows 365 Clients

    Prerequisites: Make sure you have the latest version of Microsoft Teams (version 24193.1805.3040.8975 or higher) and the Remote Desktop client (version 1.2.5405.0 or higher) or the new Windows app (version 1.3.252 or higher).

    Install the Plugin: The plugin (MsTeamsPluginAvd.dll) is bundled with both the Remote Desktop client and the new Windows app. It will automatically download and manage Slimcore. No admin rights or reboots are required.

    Verify Installation: After installation, the plugin will silently provision and register Slimcore for the user. You can verify this by check in the Teams client on the Cloud PC that the Slimcore client is being used by going to Settings – About Teams. Look for the text “AVD Slimcore Media Optimized”.

    User Experience Improvements

    One of the standout aspects of Slimcore is how it aligns the Teams experience between physical and virtual desktops. This consistency is crucial for user satisfaction and productivity. This gives the user a familiar experiance with the features they expect to find in Teams!

    Conclusion

    Slimcore is a significant step forward for Teams in VDI environments. It brings enhanced performance, high-fidelity media, and advanced meeting capabilities, all while simplifying updates and maintenance. If you haven’t tried it yet, now is the perfect time to explore what Slimcore can do for your virtual desktop setup.

  • Improving Decision Making with Intune Advanced Analytics Data

    Improving Decision Making with Intune Advanced Analytics Data

    One thing that many IT administrators tackles every day is the discussion about “my computer feels slow” or “I need a faster computer”. Sometime the feeling of having a slow computer is legit, and sometimes it’s something else.

    There are numerous DEX (Digital Employee Experience) tools out there on the market. This can provide you with a great overview of your whole ecosystem, ranging from Teams call quality to desktop experience. However, even if those tools are great, they come with a new set of data to analyze in a new tool. And in bigger organizations, the complicated puzzle of “who owns this and who makes remediations?” arises.

    Since I write a lot about Microsoft stuff, we will dive into the Intune Advanced Analytics part of the Intune Suite.

    Intune Advanced Analytics is a native part of Intune, which gives you more extensive reporting on your Windows devices. I know Windows isn’t 100% of the fleet in modern organizations but we need to start somewhere.

    Setting up Intune Advanced Analytics

    To start using Intune Advanced Analytics, you will need these three things.

    • Intune environment
    • Intune Suite licenses or Intune Advanced Analytics stand-alone license (remember, this is user based)
    • Configuring Endpoint analytics in Intune

    I won’t go through how to obtain license, since this will vary from case to case depending on your setup.

    Configuring Endpoint Analytics

    The first thing you need to do is to configure Endpoint Analytics to receive data from your devices. Since I’m all in the cloud, we will look at how you do this for Intune managed devices. To do this, you need to have the Intune Service Administrator role, also known as Intune Administrator.

    Head over to the Endpoint Analytics blade in Intune (you can find it under Reports or at https://aka.ms/endpointanalytics). When in there, select the Settings blade.

    You can see that my tenant already uses the Intune data collection policy. This default policy exists in all tenants, but you need to make sure it’s assigned to your devices.

    Manually create the policy

    If you can’t find the policy in your environment, it’s no big deal. You just need create a new policy based on the template for Windows Health monitoring.

    If you are configuring this for the first time, make sure to switch Health monitoring to Enable and set the Scope to Endpoint analytics.

    Deploy this policy to your devices using either the built in “All devices” group or use a device group.

    When you set this up for the first time, it can take up to 24 hours for the data to populate. If you are looking to use Advanced Analytics, expect up to 48 hours.

    Allow access to URLs

    The last step to do is to make sure that your devices are allowed to reach the URL needed for Endpoint Analytics. This is important if you have a restrictive firewall or if you use a webfilter/proxy to run all your traffic through.

    For Intune, the needed URL is:

    https://*.events.data.microsoft.com

    If you want to read more about how to set this up for Configuration Manager managed devices, check out the Microsoft Learn page.

    Getting access to the data

    Now when 24 hours have passed, we should start seeing data being populated. If you have additional people who should not be admins who need to review the data. There are a few different built-in roles you can use, or create a custom role.

    These are the different options you have:

    Role nameMicrosoft Entra roleIntune roleEndpoint analytics permissions
    Global AdministratorYesRead/write
    Intune Service AdministratorYesRead/write
    School AdministratorYesRead/write
    Endpoint Security ManagerYesRead only
    Help Desk OperatorYesRead only
    Read Only OperatorYesRead only
    Reports ReaderYesRead only

    Once we have our roles in order, we can start looking at the data!

    Looking at the data

    The Endpoint Analytics feature consist of 6 different blades

    • Startup Performance
    • Application reliability
    • Work from anywhere
    • Resource performance
    • Remoting connection

    These features are available with the regular Intune license. With the Intune Advance Analytics license you will get a few more. And it’s automatically integrated into the Intune administrator experience.

    • Custom device scopes
    • Anomalies
    • Enhanced device timeline
    • Device query
    • Battery health

    If you want to read more about what’s included, I would suggest checking out this Microsoft Learn article.

    Reviewing my devices

    But as I stated in the beginning of the post, let’s talk about reviewing resource performance. With the regular Intune license, you will gain access to resource performance for your Cloud PCs. With this, I get insights which Cloud PCs are meeting my targets and what Cloud PCs I should investigate upgrading to a different SKU. This data can be broken down to a device or model. This gives me great data about my environment on CPU and RAM spikes when they are being used.

    All devices get a score based on their performance, and you can configure what your baseline is in the Endpoint Analytics settings.

    You can break the numbers down based on model or individual device performance to get a better understanding.

    With the 2408 Intune Service update, this was also made available for physical devices if you have the Intune Advance Analytics license enabled. This will provide me with insights on how my physical devices are performing when it comes to RAM and CPU. I can also learn if they have continuous spikes indicating that they need an upgrade.

    If we stand in the “Device performance” tab, we can see all Cloud PCs and physical PCs gathered in the same place. You can also compare Cloud PC and physical PC performance.

    Looking at specific devices

    If we click on the name of a device, you will be redirected to the blade “User experience” on the device itself. You can also find it if you search for a device in the device list and click in to view that device.

    From here, you can see a lot of data about the device around its performance.

    As you can see, my Surface Laptop Go 3 has had a few minor spikes in RAM the last 14 days but nothing major.

    And if we look at the overall score, it’s pretty okay.

    Device timeline

    There is one more really nice feature with the Intune Advanced Analytics we can see, and that is a Device Timeline (last tab on the top).

    In here, we can see historical data on events that has happened on the device which impact the user experience. As you can see on this device, I’m having a few issues with applications.

    And if we jump back and look at another device, a Cloud PC, we can see the same kind of data.

    One interesting thing I found while writing this blog post is that I compared my Surface Laptop Go 3 i5 with 16gb RAM with my 4vCPU/16GB Cloud PC. What I can see was that my Cloud PC scores higher. I would say that I use them in a similar way, the same amount of time. I do know that the Cloud PC has a little bit of a more powerfull CPU (being a cloud PC),

    The Cloud PC scores 98 in resource performance.

    While my Surface Laptop Go 3 scores 77.

    So performance wise, Cloud PCs are doing a lot better. However, the Surface Laptop Go 3 is not a fair comparance being a more “low tier” PC. However, they are still both performing really good for what I use them for. So this is important to take into considerations when looking at the data.

    Take away

    Knowing how the performance of the devices in your environment chelan p you figure out when devices needs to be replaces or upgraded. As you already know, backing your decisions using data is key! Intune can provide you with a lot of data on your device without the need to buy a third party tool and deploying/maintaining a client on the device.

    However, if we start looking at “real” DEX products, Intune Advanced Analytics does not provide the same level of data. You will also need to combine several parts of Intune to be able to perform e.g. remediations on the things you find. You still need to manually take actions or create remediation scripts on your findings.

    But if you are just getting started and need “something”, this will provide you with a great overview of your environment! This will help you make better decisions and help your end-users even better!

    I hope you liked this post and that it gave you some insights to what you can do with Intune Advanced Analytics!

  • Summer recap – what did we miss?

    Summer recap – what did we miss?

    Like all Swedes, summer means vacation mode for 4-5 weeks and that means not keeping up with what’s happening in the world.

    So here is a recap of what’s been happening during the summer months.

    MVP renewal

    In the begning of July, the MVP renewals where announced and I’m happy to announce that I’ve been renewed as a Windows and Devices MVP for the 3rd time.

    Big congratulation to all my fellow MVPs that got renewed for 2024!

    Windows 365 updates

    July was full of Windows 365 updates, there has been updates for Windows 365 each week since July 1st which is really awesome. A lot of great updates.

    Here are some highlights, but if you want to see the full list check it out here.

    Cross region disaster recovery

    Windows 365 cross region disaster recovery is an optional service for Windows 365 Enterprise which protects the Cloud PCs and data against regional outages. This is a seperatly licensed service which can be purchased as an add-on to your existing service.

    Cross region disaster recovery in Windows 365 | Microsoft Learn

    Windows 365 Cloud PC gallery images use new Teams VDI

    The new Teams for VDIs has been added to the Windows 365 image gallery, containing all the optimizations for Windows 365. All your newly previsioned Cloud PCs will containg the new optimizations.

    Microsoft Teams on Cloud PCs | Microsoft Learn

    Cloud PC support for FIDO devices and passkeys on macOS and iOS (preview)

    Windows 365 Cloud PCs now support FIDO devices and passkeys for Microsoft Entra ID sign in on macOS and iOS.

    Updated default settings for Windows 365 security baselines

    Microsoft has released an updated version of the security baseline for Windows 365. You can find a full list of the updated settings here: List of the settings in the Windows 365 Cloud PC security baseline in Intune.

    New GPU offerings for Cloud PCs are now generally available

    Microsoft has finally released the new GPU offering! The GPU offerings are suitable for graphical intense workloads requiring a more optimized performance. The offering consists of three different SKUs called Standard, Super and Max with different configurations for different kinds of workloads.

    GPU Cloud PCs in Windows 365 | Microsoft Learn

    Uni-directional clipboard support is now generally available

    The clipboard settings for Windows 365 and AVD has been in preview for a while, but have now been

    moved into general availability with some pretty nice added functionallity. You can configure a lot of new different content type, and you can select to allow which direction clipboard should be allowed. This applies to both Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop.

    Configure the clipboard transfer direction in Azure Virtual Desktop | Microsoft Learn

    Intune updates

    The list for Windows 365 was long (in the aspect of Windows 365 updates), but there has been even more Intune updates.

    If you want to read the full list of updates during the summer months, check out the full list here.

    Update for Apple user and device enrollments with Company Portal

    Microsoft has updated the registration process for Apples devices using the Intune Company Portal. The main change is that now the Entra ID registration happens after the enrollment, instead of during the enrollment. This applies for both iOS/iPadOs devices and macOS devices.

    The change means that if you are using dynamic device Entra ID groups which rely on the device registration, you need to make sure that the users complete the whole process.

    iOS/iPadOS device enrollment guide for Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn

    New configuration capabilities for Managed Home Screen

    If you are using managed home screen for Android, you can now enable the virtual app-switcher button to allow users to switch between apps on a kiosk device.

    Configure the Microsoft Managed Home Screen app for Android Enterprise

    Copilot in Intune now has the device query feature using Kusto Query Language (KQL) (public preview)

    If you are using Copilot in Intune, you can now generate a KQL query using Copilot while asking in natural language. Great way to learn KQL or get inspiration for your querys!

    Microsoft Copilot in Intune

    New setting in the Device Control profile for Attack surface reduction policy

    Microsoft has added the “Allow Storage Card” setting to the Attack surface reduction policy, which can also be found in the settings catalog.

    AllowStorageCard 

    New operatingSystemVersion filter property with new comparison operators (preview)

    There is a new filter property for operatingSystemVersion, which is available in a public preview.

    This filter allows you to use operators like GreaterThan, GreaterThanOrEquals, LessThan and LessThanOrEquals to your oprating system version and is available for Android, iOS/iPadOS, macOS and Windows!

    Consolidation of Intune profiles for identity protection and account protection

    Microsoft has done some cleaning up around identity and account protection policies and added them all into a single profile called Account protection which can be found in the account protection policy node of endpoint security. This is the only template which will be available going forward for identity and account protection. The new profile also includes Windows Hello for Business and Windows Credential Guard.

    Account protection policy for endpoint security in Intune

    New Intune report and device action for Windows enrollment attestation (public preview)

    There is a new report in public preview for finding out if a device has attested and enrolled securly while being hardware-backed.

    Windows enrollment attestation

    New support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

    Microsoft Intune now supports device management for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. You can enroll and manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux devices, and assign standard compliance policies, custom configuration scripts, and compliance scripts.

    Deployment guide: Manage Linux devices in Microsoft Intune 

    Newly available Enterprise App Catalog apps for Intune

    The Enterprise App Catalog has updated to include additional apps. For a complete list of supported apps.

    Apps available in the Enterprise App Catalog.

    New actions for Microsoft Cloud PKI

    The Microsoft Cloud PKI has been updated with some new features.

    • Delete: Delete a CA.
    • Pause: Temporarily suspend use of a CA.
    • Revoke: Revoke a CA certificate.

    Delete Microsoft Cloud PKI certification authority

    ACME protocol support for iOS/iPadOS and macOS enrollment

    Microsoft has started a phased rollout of the infrastructure change to support the Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME) protocol. When a new Apple devices enroll, the management profile from Intune receives an ACME certificate instead of a SCEP certificate. Existing OS and hardware eligible devices do not get the ACME certificate unless they re-enroll. 

    Windows updates

    The realse of Windows 11 24h2 is getting closer and closer, and it could be guessed to be released in a September/October time frame looking at past releases.

    One thing that is also important to highlight is that we are getting closer and closer to the Windows 10 EOS, which means that we really need to focus on getting those devices migrated or removed.

  • How to Save the Planet with Windows 365

    How to Save the Planet with Windows 365

    Okay so this is a blogpost I’ve been putting off for a long time without any good reason to be honest. I think I’m wanting this to be perfect since it’s a combination of several things I care deeply about. This will probably be like a part 1. So here we go.

    TLDR;

    One of the benefits of Windows 365 is that it can reduce the environmental footprint of IT operations by shifting the energy consumption and emissions from the end-user devices to the cloud servers. According to a study by Microsoft, the Microsoft cloud is between 22 and 93 percent more energy efficient than traditional enterprise datacenters, depending on the specific comparison being made. When taking into account Microsoft’s renewable energy purchases, the Microsoft cloud is between 72 and 98 percent more carbon efficient.

    Microsoft has also committed to be a carbon negative, water positive, and zero waste company by 2030, and to protect more land than it uses by 2025. In its 2022 Environmental Sustainability Report, Microsoft shared its progress, challenges, and learnings on its journey to meet these goals. The report also showcases how Microsoft is delivering digital technology for net zero, such as Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, which helps customers measure and manage their environmental impact.

    What is Windows 365

    If you have been reading my blog for a while, you are familiar with what Windows 365 is, but in case you have missed it let’s do a short intro.

    Windows 365 is a cloud-based service to provide what Microsoft calls a Cloud PC. This is in fact a virtual computer based on the Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) platform, but instead of you having to maintain any infrastructure, you consume it as a SaaS solution. The performance of the Cloud PC is based on what license you have purchased. Compared to AVD, you pay a fixed price per month for the license instead of paying for your consumption.

    Since this is a cloud service, you can access it from whatever device you prefer, or even just a browser.

    Since we can run a controlled and managed Windows device in a remote context, we are open to allowing more secure ways of working from a broader range of devices since we are in full control of the remote session.

    The sad truth about hardware

    One of the largest environmental impact we have within IT is our devices. Many companies replaces their computers on a ~3 year basis. For a larger company this is a huge amount of new devices being bought every year, and as many devices being decommissioned. The market for reselling computers are growing by the day and we see more and more companies offering this service to their customers, and even consumers.

    Computers which are three years old aren’t that old to be fair. They are not the latest and greatest, but can still do a really good job for most usecases.

    Reducing the need to renew hardware

    By utilizing Windows 365, we can actually extend the life time of a computer since we can run Windows 365 on anything with Windows 10 or never. Windows 11 is one of the major reason hardware will need to be replaced, since there is a Windows 11 only supports Intel 8th generations processors and newer (let’s be fair, Intel is the most commonly used today). 8th generation means mid-2017 as earliest which is about six and a half year ago when this post is being written.

    This is something that has been stuck in my head that we will see A LOT of computers being obsolete on the 14th of October 2024. Then Microsoft released a very interesting statement about end of service for Windows 10 and Extended Security Updates (ESUs). You will get the ESU included in the Windows 365 if you are accessing your Cloud PC from a Windows 10 host. This will extend the life of these computers another 3 years.

    This means that you could move over to Windows 11 but keep some older hardware around for accessing Cloud PCs. Since there is no Windows 365 Boot for Windows 10, you could build a kiosk based on this post to make sure your users ONLY access their Windows 365 Cloud PC, which would be running Windows 11.

    By utilizing Windows 365 and Cloud PCs, we can actually keep our computers current for a much longer time. Instead of getting a new computer with the latest, faster, processor and more memory we can utilize the server grade equipment in the Azure datacenters which are a lot more powerful than our laptops are anyways. Since Windows 365 is license based, this means that when we need more computing power on our Cloud PC, we can upgrade the license and after a reboot we have a more powerful PC.

    The hardware in the Azure data centers are lifecycled and replaced, but Microsoft are putting a lot of effort in to reusing old equipment, reducing the environmental impact. Sever hardware is also recycled to minimize the constraint on the environment.

    Running workloads on shared resources, like in Azure, is much more energy efficient as well. However, lets not forget that data centers uses a lot of energy to be operate. But today Microsoft data centers are run on renewable energy improves this even further while Microsoft is also striving to be carbon negative by 2030.

    Read more:

    There has been a report put out on the environmental impact of Windows 365 compared to other VDI solutions and physical hardware. This is where I got parts of my data. Long but worth reading: https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RW10vtL

    Fellow MVP Thomas Marcussen wrote about reducing your carbon footprint with Windows 365: Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Windows 365 – Thomas MarcussenThomas Marcussen

  • Windows 365 Boot – What is the fuzz about?

    Windows 365 Boot – What is the fuzz about?

    If you are, just like me, a BIG Windows 365 fan you probably haven’t missed the news around Windows 365 Boot. There was an update released in the end of January which enabled what is called Windows 365 Boot Dedicated mode and Windows 365 Boot Shared mode.

    There are a lot of awesome posts out there how to configure these, like these to from my fellow Windows 365 MVP Dominiek Verham, which I really recommend you to check out!

    Two really awesome posts about how to get started.

    But why should you use it and why should we pay attention to this?

    In this post, I’ll discuss a little around my view on why these to features will play a crutial part in the Windows 365 journey and the future of Windows. These

    And also let’s adress the elephant in the room. Windows 365 Boot is basically Microsofts take on thing clients on Windows. This has been done before by others, but never using the standard management tools. I think that is one of the key things with Windows 365 Boot, we manage a regular Windows installation with Microsoft Intune.

    Windows 365 Boot Dedicated mode

    Lets start of with what it is.

    Windows 365 Boot Dedicated mode is a new Windows 365 feature which enables you to have a PC which is using Windows 365 Boot that is, just like the name says, is dedicated to one user. Right now, this feature is in public preview.

    Previosuly when we have looked at Windows 365 Boot, you have not had a user assigned to the machine which meant that using passwordless solutions like e.g. Windows Hello for Business was not possible.

    Now with Windows 365 Dedicated mode, I can have my PC setup as a Windows 365 machine and each time I sign in to my computer I will end up in my Cloud PC session using Windows Hello for Business.

    This opens for a lot of new cool scenarios which we could do and I think this might be the bigger and maybe a scenario which is harder for many to related to. We are so used to having our “own” computer locally, and maybe connect out to a virtual session when ever we need to switch context to a different environment or such. This would make your primary device a cloud based computer, which in my world is kind of awesome.

    Some scenarios I can think of top of mind where this could be usefull are:

    • Extend life of older hardware
    • Upgrade a PC to a higher spec without needing to have physcal access to the device
    • Provide cheaper hardware for certain scenarios
    • Ensure data is not lost when using devices in more extreme environments (hardware failure)

    One kind of weird scenario that came to mind was also that you could by your self also switch between computers, by selecting in the Windows 365 web portal which device to connect to. This means that you could for extended times work from one typ och device, and then easliy change this through the webportal.

    Why should we care?

    To be honest, I think this scenario could potenitally be a hard sell to IT people, since we are very used to working with out operating system locally. The host machine would still require to run Windows 11, but you would never really see it and you would still need to patch the OS on a regular basis.

    I think the biggest selling point here is that if you go with a Cloud PC in this way, you will always run on “hardware” which is preforming. No need to wory about disk crashes, slowness or anything like that. You will also gain insane traffic thorugh put, since your computer is not actually connected to your own network. It’s connected to the Microsoft network which is playing in a different legue when it comes to upload/download speeds then our usual home internet. This would actually benefit you if you work with a lot of large files, OneDrive and SharePoint syncs insanly fast. This is however a feature of Windows 365 as a service, not the dedicated mode.

    In my mind, this is something we need to keep attention to how it develops, even if many of us are not ready to take the leap today. My bet is that THIS will be a big part of the future of Windows.

    Windows 365 Boot Shared mode

    Windows 365 Boot Shared mode is more like the Windows 365 Boot which went into GA last September, but with some updates. One of the major differences is that you can now add your company logo on the sign-in page to make it more relatable to your brand.

    The concept behind this is to provide a shared workstation which many different users work from. Looking at different scenarios I’ve seen with customers, this could cover that “kiosk” computer in the break room in a workshop. Or maybe a good and simple way to provide a great experiance to personal working in a callcenter where you don’t have your own desk. And why not that sales station which is used by several people.

    If you combine the Windows 365 Boot Shared mode with a Windows 365 Frontline license, you pretty much hit the sweet spot. Then you can sprinkle with a FIDO2 key (like Yubikey) and you even simplify the sign-in process and make it passwordless!

    One big issue has always been “how do we provide a great experiance on a shared device”. Traiditionally, there has always been an issue with user profiles (if you have to many things break) but that can be addressed with the shared device policy in Microsoft Intune. However, you are still not giving a full computer experiance to the users, they are usually pretty limited and distributing applications is not as smooth as if you had a personal computer.

    This would also mean that if you are working in a setup where you move around a lot, and maybe not always come back to the same computer, you can continue your work exactly where you left of but from a different computer.

    Windows 365 Boot Shared mode gives you that personal experiance, but on a shared device.

    Why should we care?

    One thing that always seams to be a complex and tricky scenario to solve are those shared devices, especially if the user moves around a lot. Think clients of different sorts has always been a big thing here, but for many IT admins the thin clients means another tool to administrate in, instead of the tool they are spend most of their time in for managing the other devices. Using Windows 365 Boot we can leverage Microsoft Intune and bulding thin clients on Windows, by just deploying a set of policies from Microsoft Intune.

    For many organization, intorducing a new management tool for thin clients is a little bit of a bump in the road since this means getting that tool approved, setup and educating the adminsitrators on how to use it if there is no pre-exisiting knowledge. It’s not necesserially a hard thing to learn a new tool, but it could slow down the implementation process for some organizations.

    Key take aways

    What I think we need to think about is that Windows as we know it is about to change, it won’t be over night but something is happening now. Imagine when we started seeinf Office 365 which later became Microsoft 365? That was a journey, and I think that right now we are seeing the start of this journey for Windows. I might be naive and sprinkled a little wishfull thinking over this whole thing, but I really think we will see a change over the next couple of years in what we think of as Windows and what we expect. Mind you, these are my personal thoughts and ideas.

    However, the Windows 365 Boot features brings some really intersting things to the table. We can now easily deploy and manage thin clients without needing any additional tools or licenses. I think that is pretty sweet as someone who works with customers who hare heavily invested in the Microsoft echosystem. It might not be as far along and flexible as e.g. IGEL. But this would potentially get more companies started with thin clients since there really isn’t any roadblocks anymore like there used to.

  • I hate computers

    I hate computers

    I’ve come to realize one thing lately.

    I hate computers.

    This will be a different post. But bare with me on this one, okay. It will make sense in the end (I hope).

    My epiphany about hating computers happened when my lab machine all of a sudden decided that “I don’t have a bluetooth adapter anymore” after about 2 years of actually having one. I did about everything but reinstalling Windows on the machine, but the bluetooth adapter was not recognized by my computer. I even opened up the NUC to see if I could see if there was any obvious physical damage (I’m not an expert), but nothing.

    THE DAY I decided that “fudge this, I’ll just reinstall it” it started working again. No new driver updates, no new patches. It just started working. I still have no clue what happened to be honest.

    That was the moment I started hating computers.

    I just want to be productive

    Living without a functioning Bluetooth adapter in the computer meant that I needed to find the USB-receiver for ALL my wireless accessories (headset, mouse, keyboard) in order to even work from this machine.

    This ment that I needed to take time out of my day (mostly late afternoons) and firstly try to figure out the issue and secondly since I suck at troubleshooting hardware, find all the USB receivers for all my stuff since I had of course also lost my USB Bluetooth receiver 🤦‍♂️.

    I’m one of those computer guys who don’t really like troubleshooting, I just want stuff to work.

    Reinstalling Windows is a breeze now adays, and it would have taken me an hour or two to be back up and running. I work from a strict policy to save EVERYTHING in the cloud so that wiping my computer isn’t an issue anymore, I will just lose what ever app I didn’t add to Intune. But it’s still a hick-up in my flow.

    Automate drivers

    This “incident” has gotten me thinking a bit. One thing I tend to hear with customers is that there is a fear to patch/update drivers for example, since we are afraid that it will break something in the OS or an application. I’ve been doing Intune work for the last 10 years, and I’ve strongly advocated to “maybe it’s time to also update drivers” for the past 7 years since it’s usually more risky to run pre-release versions of drivers than the latest. OEMs tend to also update drivers only when they have to, and the 700 million consumer Windows machines out there with the latest drivers seems to be working fine (don’t quote me on the numbers). One thing I’ve seen way to often is that an old driver breaks Microsoft Teams. The camera stops working usually and as soon as you install the latest driver. Poof! The camera works!

    When you start think about it, what if we stopped caring so much about drivers and just automated it with Windows Autopatch? New drivers are installed when released and needed.

    Windows 365 to the rescue?

    Let’s take it one step further. What if we use Windows 365 to consume our apps and desktop experience instead and we only need to make sure that the OS and out applications are up to date. The hardware we are accessing through could be any kind of device, not neccesarily a Windows based device. Windows 365 makes it possible to actually be device independent. The bare minimum I need is something with a browser.

    This is actually something which excites me a bit too much. I started my career in the mobile device management field, managing iPhone in the “mobile first” era when we though we would be able to do EVERYTHING from our mobile. If we can access a virtual desktop from our mobile, all of a sudden we actually can even consume those legacy Win32 apps from a mobile device.

    I’m really excited about the Motorola ThinkPhone with the Windows 365 integration even though I don’t own one and I really don’t like Android since I’ve had an iPhone the last 15 years. But the idea of only having one device is something that excites me. Or at least in some situations only need one device. Still not enough to by the darn thing, but I love the concept of it.

    So what is the point of this post?

    Well, maybe we should start to rethink the workplace and what devices we need. Do I really need a desktop, a laptop, a phone and a tablet? Maybe not the reality for everyone but I know a lot of people running on such a setup. What if I just needed one or two devices, but I could still do all the stuff I need.

    Looking at my current setup, I’ve downsized to one phone from two and I prioritized battery life over performance when getting a new laptop. I even went with an ARM-based Surface with the knowledge that “I can always use Windows 365 if I need more power” which is really comforting to know. This opens up that I can go for more slim formfactors and prioritize different aspects.

    Moving the workloads to a Cloud PC would also reduce the need of getting the “latest and greatest” machine to do things. Our Cloud PC will be kept up to date since Microsoft is lifecycling the infrastructue in Azure, which for me as a user would mean that I always have “the best” configuration.

    There are of course a lot of if’s and but’s around this, like the need for constant internet connetivity. But let’s face it, how often do we work without internet connectivity? You can even get some what reliable connectivity on an airplane today.

    Problem with this appraoch is that this is how I reason, I still have way to many laptops on my desk for different customer engagements and testing things, since this is not the reality yet. But maybe it’s the future?

    If you ever meet me and also hate computers, let me know and I’ll give you “I hate computers” sticker!

  • The new Windows app

    Microsoft announced a new app to consume your Windows 365 Cloud PC, Azure Virtual Desktops, published apps and other remote desktop sessions. This app is simply called “Windows app”.

    But we already have apps for this one might say, and that is true. But we need different apps for AVD and Windows 365 today. If you use the Microsoft Remote Desktop app you will be able to see and connect to both your Windows 365 Cloud PC, your Azure Virtual Desktops, and your published apps, but you will miss some key features to WIndows 365.

    To get all those nice features for our Windows 365 Cloud PCs, we today must use the Windows 365 app.

    If we look at how things are in many businesses, a lot of times we have a mix of Cloud PCs, AVDs and published apps. Today that means that we need to separate apps to get the full experience, which from a user perspective can be confusing since I will see my Cloud PCs in the Microsoft Remote Desktop app, but I won’t see my AVDs or published apps in the Windows 365 app.

    The announcement at Microsoft Ignite around the new app is to bridge that gap and get everything into one app, the Windows app.

    Before going forward, PLEASE be aware that this is still in preview. Things might change and be added/removed.

    What is the Windows app?

    Introducing the Windows app. This is your new place to consume all your remote desktop session!

    The new Windows app brings all the awesome new features in Windows 365 and combines them with the Microsoft Remote Desktop features like support for AVD and published apps.

    I think one of the killer features is also that now we will have the same app, across multiple platforms. Today you need to use one or two different apps on Windows, and a less full feature one on all the other platforms. But the new Windows app changes that!

    Borrowed from MS Learn

    Getting started!

    The first thing you need to do, if you haven’t done so already, is to download the Windows 365 app from the Microsoft Store (or have it provisioned to you from e.g. Intune).

    Once you are signed in, you will notice a small button in the top menu saying “Preview”. Click on that! If you cannot see the preview button, make sure your app is up to date!

    Once you have enabled this, the app will close and the new one will launch (might take a second or two), and you will be asked to sign in again. Once you have signed in, you will now be in the new app experience!

    Using the app

    This is the new landing screen, to which you can pin your Cloud PCs, AVDs and published apps. And if I want to pin something to my home screen, I head into “Devices” and select the three dots on the resource I want to pin, then select “Pin to” and select “Pin to home“.

    As you can see, all the other remote actions available in the Windows 365 app are also there so I can in the same menu do a restart, restore, inspect connection etc. And if I want to pin it to the task view or taskbar, I can do so from here.

    But there is also a Microsoft Remote Desktop feature in this app which I was missing in the Windows 365 app; the possibility to not start the session in full screen. You find this by going to Settings on the machine in question and setting “Use default settings” to off. If you then select “Single display” in the Display configuration section, you will be able to turn off “Start in full screen“. If you jump back and forth or have a large screen, this is a really good feature.

    You can of course also select your theme, if you want light mode or dark mode, or if you want the app to use whatever you are using in the operating system. Just click the settings icon in the lower left part of the app and select which mode!

    And the last thing… The app supports multiple accounts so you can jump back and forth between tenants. Crucial feature for a consultant!

    Other platform

    Like I said, the app is today available for Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS and Android is still not yet released but it’s coming.

    I’ve tested it on my iPhone, and to be honest the experience was way better than I anticipated.

    One feature I really like is that when just leaving the app and having the desktop open, the session will continue when I come back without the need to re-connect.

    The iOS app is a lot like the Microsoft Remote Desktop app in look and feel, but with a few improvements. I still can’t restart my Cloud PC from the app, but I can restore it if needed. However, it’s not a farfetched guess that it will come in a later release.

    All the apps are still in preview, and if you want the iOS/iPadOS or macOS app, you will have to head over to Microsoft Learn and fins the links.

    Bonus

    What I haven’t covered is that there is also a new web portal, which has the same look and feel as the new Windows app.

    The new address to the new web-app is https://windows.cloud.microsoft/. You can read more about it in the Microsoft Learn guide as well.

  • Microsoft Ignite 2023 recap

    Microsoft Ignite 2023 recap

    It’s that time of the year again. Not Christmas. Microsoft Ignite time!

    This year I decided not to go to Seattle, but instead follow it virtually from home. I can say now when Microsoft Ignite is over that I’ve had a severe case of FOMO the last couple of days, by just seeing all the pictures it looked like it was a really awesome event!

    But since MS Ignite is over, it means that it’s time for a recap. What did I find most interesting?

    For starters. There was a clear theme this year. AI, AI, Copilot, Copilot and Copilot. 😂

    Oh, and the picture in the top of this post is of course created using AI!

    Windows 365

    There was a bunch of new things released within Windows 365 at Ignite, and Windows 365 actually got time in the main keynotes!

    New Windows app – A preview of a new app to support not only Windows 365 and Cloud PC, but to also give you all your Azure Virtual Desktops, DevBox and published apps in the same place. The cool thing is that it’s also platform independed so we will see the same experiance on all major platforms going forward. You be able to have a “Windows” app on your iPad.

    Windows 365 GPU support – Microsoft announced that GPU support for graphic design work is coming to Windows 365, and this will really be great for a lot of customer scenarios! It will be really interesting to see the pricetag on the GPU SKU, I would kind of guess that you really need to have a good business case and not just have it’s because GPUs are cool…

    Windows 365 AI capabilities – It was also announced that you as an IT admin will be able to get AI based recommendation on sizing the Cloud PCs. This to help improving cost efficiency and user sattisfaction. Preview will be released soon.

    Single-sign on (SSO) and passwordless authentication – SSO and passwordless has for quite some time now been in preview in the Intune portal, but it’s not in general availability. This also applies to approved AVD providers!

    Watermarking, screen capture protection, and tamper protection – in order to increase security and prevent dataloss, these features which have been in public preview for a while are now in general availablity on both Windows 365 and AVD.

    Windows 365 Customer Lockbox – To ensure that Microsoft support engineers can’t access content to do service operations without explicit approval, you can use Customer Lockbox. This is similar to other Customer Lockbox within the Microsoft ecosystem. This is in public preview.

    Windows 365 Customer Managed Keys – I think this is a pretty cool update. You will soon be able to use your own encryption keys for encrypting the Windows 365 Cloud PC disk.

    Windows

    Eventhough Microsoft Build is usually where we see most Windows news, there were a couple during Ignite this year.

    Copilot in Windows – This was actually announced at the event earlier this fall and went in to public preview for selected markets on the 1st of November. During Ignite Microsot announced that it will go into general availablity in December, so let’s cross out fingers Europe is included!

    Windows Autopatch for frontline workers– Windows Autopatch is not new, but Windows Autopatch is now included in the Microsoft 365 F3 subscription to ensure frontline workers are kept up to date.

    Windows Autopilot and Windows Update for Business merging – Microsoft is streamlining the interface to handle updates

    Microsoft Intune

    There were a few big announcements for Microsoft Intune, and I would say the two biggest were around macOS management, Security Copilot in Intune and the Intune Suite.

    MacOS management – Microsoft has for a while now been very loud about their story around macOS and Intune, and we are now starting to see the outcome of this. I wouldn’t say that there were that much news related to Ignite around this, but they were pushing for that Intune is now in the forefront of device management for Mac, which means that you no longer need to have Jamf or such to have extensive macOS management.

    Security Copilot for Intune – As part of the Copilot and Ai journey we are on, Security Copilot will help you dentify annomolies or issues in your environment. It will help you analyze big chunks of data in no time to find security related events. But Security Copilot is more than that, it will also integrate in Microsoft Intune to help you create new policies or figure out how to solve issues that arrises. This will be such a great feature for many admins out there!

    Microsoft Intune suite updates – Microsoft Intune Suite was announced back in March this year and has so far mostly been focues on Endpoint Privilegde Management and Remote Help. Microsoft has now announced three more features that are coming; Enterprise App Management, Advanced Analytics and Cloud PKI. These three additional services will make the Intune Suite bundle even better and are expected to all be available in February of 2024.

    Summary

    To be honest, this years focus at Ignite was Copilot. The word “Copilot” is mentioned 289 times in the book of news. That kind of set the tone for Ignite. Don’t get me wrong, I’m super excited for Copilot but this year was crazy!

    Any how, lot of cool stuff coming out of Ignite this year and I think we will see things moving even faster now around AI since post-Ignite there has been some news around people from OpenAI joining Microsoft… What a time to be alive!

    One thing that I take with me is that next year, I want to go to Seattle and be there in person. My feeds has been filled with Ignite related pictures and the FOMO has been real!