Back in May, I covered Windows 365 Boot in detail. Within the last week, Microsoft announced new features available in Public Preview. Today, we will cover these new features:
- Microsoft Intune Guided Setup for Windows 365 Boot Public Preview
- Dedicated Mode for Windows 365 Boot
- Shared Mode for Windows 365 Boot with Full Customization
- Fail Fast Mechanism for Windows 365 Boot
- Managing Local PC Settings
Intune Guided Setup for Windows 365 Boot Public Preview
We start in the Windows 365 menu in Intune. The Windows 365 Guides below are a nice guided walkthrough that creates a number of Intune resources like:
- Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop (HostApp) App Deployments
- Enrollment Status Page Profile
- Autopilot Profile
- Windows Update Policy
- Device Configuration Policy
We’ll check out the video below, which shows you how it works. You can check my previous article here to learn more about the under the covers CSPs that make the “engine” go.
One difference from the video, you can now select from two different Windows 365 Boot modes, which we will discuss next.
One other note, I recommend skipping this section. We will cover it manually and tweak it later:
Dedicated Mode for Windows 365 Boot
One of the coolest new things is Dedicated Mode. In Dedicated Mode, you get a very similar experience to a regular PC. With dedicated mode, you extend Windows Hello to your machine among other passwordless authentication methods. You also get your avatar like you would on a regular PC.
But wait there’s more! Fast user switching is also available letting you switch users, remember usernames, and really get the best of both worlds.
Shared Mode for Windows 365 Boot with Full Customization
You can now customize the standard Windows 365 Boot experience with company branding like this below:
First, in the demo below, I will show you how to create a storage account, create a public container, and upload images for the company logo and lock screen image. Shoot for 71 x 65 for the company logo and a size that matches your screen, e.g., 1920 x 1080. I strongly recommend the Adobe Express Photo Resizer for tweaking them.
Before we can check things out, we just need to modify the device configuration policy, add the personalization setting with company logo URL, company name, and lock screen image URL as seen below. These are the URLs you will grab from your Azure files share:
You can see a neat demo of this mode along with my favorite “local settings access” features in the “Manage Local PC Settings” section.
Fail Fast Mechanism and Improved Visual Cues for Windows 365 Boot
Sometimes things go wrong. Windows 365 Boot helps people be aware of what’s going on. We have a few issues fail fast helps with. One of them is when a required app is missing:
Windows 365 Boot helps you be aware of network problems:
In a similar vein, when things are taking a while, Windows 365 Boot lets you know! They will even provide correlation IDs if problems arise for Microsoft Support:
Managing Local PC Settings
One of the secret amazing features is the new local PC management. I can’t tell you how tough it can be once you flip over to Windows 365 Boot. Sometimes you need to manipulate things and it’s difficult. Now, you can backdoor into the local PC and do all sorts of cool stuff. I’ll give you a few examples and then we’ll go to the demo.
Some of the cool ideas I like are:
- Sync’ing your device with Intune
- Checking Windows Update Settings and changing channels
- Managing I/O devices
Final Thoughts
After the exciting release of Windows 365 Boot, it’s nice to see Microsoft continuing to build on the technology. Much to AVD users dismay, this is a unique feature for Windows 365 and an amazing one. Now, we can manipulate local settings, cultivate a branded user experience, and adapt to different situations. It’s exciting to see where the product is going. Windows 365 continues to make waves like Igel did to extend the lifecycle of physical hardware, which is good for mother earth and users alike.