This blog post uses Containers-DisposableClientVM, to enable the Windows Sandbox feature on Windows 10 devices. This is available in Windows 10 Insider build 18305 or later.
This week is all about enabling a recently introduced Windows Feature. That Windows Feature is Windows Sandbox. Windows Sandbox is a lightweight desktop environment that is specifically created for safely running applications in isolation. It provides an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where users can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to their device. Any software installed in Windows Sandbox stays in the sandbox and cannot affect the host. The installed software is permanently deleted, once Windows Sandbox is closed. Windows Sandbox is part of Windows 10 (Pro and Enterprise) Insider build 18305 or later. In this post I’ll show how to use Microsoft Intune to enable Windows Sandbox, followed by the end result.
Let’s start by looking at the PowerShell script that can be used to enable the Windows Sandbox feature. The following PowerShell script can be used to basically enable any Windows Feature, but will be used in this post to specifically install the Windows Sandbox feature.
Note: When using a virtual machine, nested virtualization must be enabled for that virtual machine. That can be achieved by using the following PowerShell cmdlet on the host machine: Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true.
The next step is to configure the PowerShell script in Microsoft Intune. The script must run in SYSTEM context to easily install new Windows Features. To upload the script, follow the five steps below. After uploading the script, simply assign the script to the required devices. I deliberately mentioned devices, as I’m using a security group that filters on the version of Windows 10. The good thing is that nowadays these scripts can be assigned to devices and that users are not required to be logged on first.
Note: The script must be less than 200 KB (ASCII) or 100 KB (Unicode).
4 Back on the Add PowerShell script blade, click Create.
Now let’s end this post by looking at the results. To verify a success, simply start Windows Sandbox. That Windows Feature should be available now. To verify a success from a Microsoft Intune perspective, either check the status of the PowerShell script in the Azure portal , or look at the AgentExecutor.log and IntuneManagementExtension.log on the device.
Note: By using PowerShell, at this moment, Windows Sandbox can also be enabled on not supported devices (devices without virtualization capabilities), .
Let’s start this new year about a specific use case for the recently introduced feature to configure administrative template settings via Microsoft Intune. That specific use case is to easily control and configure the Office update channel by using the Administrative Templates profile type within Microsoft Intune. Before, this configuration would require ingesting a custom ADMX and creating custom OMA-URI settings, for configuring the Office channel, based on the information in the ingested custom ADMX. That’s not necessary anymore, as Microsoft Intune now provides a built-in list of available administrative template policy settings. In this post I’ll show the configuration steps, followed by the configuration results on a Windows 10 device.
Before looking at the actual configuration steps, it might be good to first refresh memories by looking at the naming of the update channels in the different locations. The following table shows the naming of the different channels in Microsoft Intune (and the Office apps) and in the actual ADMX. Good news! This is actually the last time that it’s really required to look at this information. As this post will show, it wasn’t even necessary for the configuration in this post. It will be useful for verifying the results. Microsoft Intune will now provide an easy method for configuring many ADMX-backed settings, without going through the actual ADMX anymore.
When this would be a configuration of an ADMX-backed settings, the information in the table above would be really relevant during the configuration. Since recently Microsoft Intune contains a new profile type, named Administrative Templates. These profiles take care of the heavy work. In case of Office settings, which will be used in this post, these profiles even take care of ingesting the correct ADMX-files. The following six steps walk through the creation of an Administrative Templates profile type that will be used to configure the Office update channel. After the creation of the policies it can be assigned to a user and/or device group.
5 On the <Name> – Settings blade, type Updates in the Search to filter items… field to filter the available settings to only update related settings and select Update Channel (as shown below) to open the Update Channel blade.
On the Update Channel blade, select Enabled to enable the setting, select the required update channel with Channel Name and click OK.
Note: Keep in mind that enabling a setting and clicking OK will directly save the change to the created device configuration profile. This is a similar experience to how changes are managed when working with normal group policies.
Note: In my device configuration profile I’ve also configured Enable Automatic Updates and Hide option to enable or disable updates to make sure that Office automatically checks for updates without an option for the user to disable Office updates.
Now it’s really interesting to look at the result of the created configuration. For that, let’s first have a look at the registry. Below on the left is an overview of the registry key of the policy manager that contains the created Office configuration. It clearly shows the settings that should be configured, including the update branch. The update branch contains the ADMX-setting value of Current, which was shown in table above, and matches my configured value, in Microsoft Intune, of Monthly Channel. Below on the right is an overview of the registry key of the policy manager that contains the ingested Office ADMX.
Another interesting location is the standard location in the registry that contains policy settings. Below on the left is an overview of the configured update branch. The update branch also contains the ADMX-setting value of Current, which was shown in table above, and matches my configured value, in Microsoft Intune, of Monthly Channel. Below on the right is the actual configuration of an Office app shown. That clearly shows the Monthly Channel configuration.
Yeah! I just received a great email stating that I’m awarded the Windows Insider MVP! What a great way to start the new year! An unexpected, but really great start of the new year! Just awesome! I feel really honored and privileged to be awarded my first Windows Insider MVP award and to already been holding the Microsoft MVP (Enterprise Mobility) award for four years! Just awesome!
Of course none of this would be possible without the support of my great family I love them and couldn’t do this without their support! Just awesome! Ready for another great year!