Provide tailored Cloud PC experiences for diverse workforce needs with Windows 365 Frontline. With shared mode, offer cost-effective, on-demand Cloud PCs that reset after each session — ideal for frontline and part-time staff needing intermittent access. Dedicated mode delivers a personalized, consistent desktop experience for employees requiring prolonged use, all managed through Microsoft Intune. As an IT admin, set precise access policies, automate session timeouts, and adjust resources based on role requirements.
Sam Tulimat, Cloud Endpoints Principal PM Lead, shows how Windows 365 Frontline is designed to optimize resources, streamline workflows, and meet the unique needs of any team, ensuring every employee has the tools they need, when and where they need them.
Provide Cloud PC access to more users with fewer licenses.
With shared mode, desktop experiences are secure and data resets after each session. Check out updates to Windows 365 Frontline.
Boost productivity with the right mode for your Cloud PCs.
Choose shared mode for quick tasks or dedicated mode for consistent access. Make sure every team member has the right tool for the job. Updates to Windows 365 Frontline.
Enhance security and free up resources.
Set auto log-out and idle time limits on shared Cloud PCs for efficient use in Windows 365 Frontline. See it here.
Watch our video here:
QUICK LINKS:
00:00 — One Cloud PC for multiple users
01:01 — Optimize costs with shared Cloud PCs
01:44 — Role-specific Cloud PCs
02:15 — Dedicated mode configuration
04:40 — Shared mode configuration steps
06:25 — Provisioning policies
07:15 — Options to reprovision Cloud PCs
07:49 — Wrap up
Link References
To get started, check out https://aka.ms/Windows365Frontline
Unfamiliar with Microsoft Mechanics?
As Microsoft’s official video series for IT, you can watch and share valuable content and demos of current and upcoming tech from the people who build it at Microsoft.
- Subscribe to our YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MicrosoftMechanicsSeries
- Talk with other IT Pros, join us on the Microsoft Tech Community: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-mechanics-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftMechanicsBlog
- Watch or listen from anywhere, subscribe to our podcast: https://microsoftmechanics.libsyn.com/podcast
Keep getting this insider knowledge, join us on social:
- Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MSFTMechanics
- Share knowledge on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft-mechanics/
- Enjoy us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msftmechanics/
- Loosen up with us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@msftmechanic
Video Transcript:
-Windows 365 Frontline now supports sharing Cloud PCs across multiple users in your organization. As a new cost effective option called shared mode in Windows 365 Frontline, you can now share Cloud PCs across groups of users that need ad-hoc access to apps to carry out specific and specialized tasks wherever they may be located.
-These can be contractors, part-time workers, or frontline workers who are in your organization’s directory, in retail or other industries. In shared mode, user data is deleted once a user signs out and is made ready for the next user to start fresh with a new Windows 365 desktop experience.
-This new option is in addition to the existing dedicated mode option that you may be familiar with. This provides a personalized, persistent, and full desktop experience to employees and is designed to start and stop based on a user’s working hours, which means whether your employees need occasional use for a Cloud PC or require more consistent access with a dedicated Cloud PC experience, we’ve got you covered.
-Let me start by showing you an example of the new shared mode experience in Windows 365 Frontline with a retail scenario. Here, I have the Windows App open. Let’s say that I’m a member of the floor retail staff, Lynn Robbins. When I connect to a Cloud PC, you’ll see that it’s running a retail configured windows desktop with the required apps pinned to the task bar and sign in with my account.
-It’s optimized for intermittent use for just a few moments each time where the floor retail staff in this case can complete, finish a task, like check or receive inventory, then sign out of the Cloud PC as you normally would. Once I sign out of the shared Cloud PC, my user profile is removed and the Cloud PC is made ready for the next staff member to sign in to repeat that task or to do something else.
-Also, if you have someone in a role that wears multiple hats, like a manager, they can have access to a shared Cloud PC designed to be used with a specific task, like I just showed you, and the dedicated personalized Cloud PC that might be used throughout the day, which also shuts down once their workday ends. In this case, you see that I have access to both a shared Cloud PC for checking inventory and a dedicated Cloud PC. If I open the dedicated Cloud PC, it will be personalized to me with my files and with apps that I typically use like Microsoft Teams and Outlook.
-Now, let me show you how you would set these two modes as an IT admin, starting with a dedicated mode in Windows 365 Frontline. From the Windows 365 page in the Microsoft Intune Admin Center, I’ve started a new provisioning policy. This policy is for anyone who needs a dedicated Cloud PC and that typically includes employees who require prolonged and consistent access to a device like the manager role I just showed you.
-For that use case, you can choose between a licensed type for Windows 365 Enterprise edition or Frontline edition, where again, the main difference is that enterprise is always available where a Frontline Cloud PC will automatically shut down outside of working hours, then start up again while in use. Let me explain how this works.
-Let’s say for example, you have nine users with only three of them working at the same time. In this case, you would only need three Frontline licenses for all nine users. This is because with dedicated mode, each license enables any three users non-concurrent access to a Cloud PC.
-And when a worker completes, for example, their shift and is no longer accessing their Cloud PC, it’s turned off. And because Windows 365 gives every user their own Cloud PC, their personal settings are retained whenever they sign in. So I’ll choose the license type as Frontline.
-Below that is a new option for Frontline type. Here you can see our options for dedicated and shared. In this case, I’ll choose dedicated mode, and depending on the image you select in the next step, it will give assigned users consistent access to personalized app experiences like Microsoft Teams for meetings, Outlook for email, and so it’s more suited to their role.
-Then I just need to select the Microsoft hosted network and my geography for where these Cloud PCs will be provisioned, and I’ll also choose Microsoft Entra single sign-on to make it even easier to use. In the next step, I’ll keep the gallery image as mentioned with Microsoft 365 apps included, then assign it to our retail managers group in Seattle.
-Now I just need to configure the Cloud PC size available to provision. Remember, with Windows 365 enterprise, you define the Cloud PC size when assigning licenses in the Microsoft 365 admin center, whereas with Windows 365 Frontline, licenses are purchased in advance, then assigned in the provisioning policy like I showed you.
-Finally, to complete the policy, I just need to review and confirm. Then each member of this group is going to get their own dedicated and personalized Cloud PC. So that’s the dedicated mode experience. And then for the shared mode experience, the configuration steps are just a little different. Let me show you.
-Here, I’ve started another Windows 365 Provisioning Policy, but this time for Frontline type, I’m going to choose shared. Like before, I’m going to select Microsoft Hosted Network and my geography for where these Cloud PCs will be provisioned and Single Sign On. This time for the image, I’m just going to select Windows 11 24H2, without the Microsoft 365 apps.
-And here in configuration, I can choose the Windows Autopilot preparation policy name from the dropdown. This ensures that preselected apps and scripts will run prior to first sign-in, and the number of minutes I’ll allow this run as well as whether I want users to connect in case of a failure.
-Then for the group assignment, I’ll choose “Retail Staff, Seattle Stores” group. This group has about 100 members, so I’m presented the Cloud PC size available to assign to this group. And below that, there are some new controls specific to shared mode. I need to give the assignment a name like retail station.
-This will appear later to help describe the Cloud PC in the Windows App. Then I can add the total number of concurrent running Cloud PCs needed for this group of floor retail staff, and in this case, it’s going to be 20. That means that if 20 people are signed into these 20 Cloud PCs, if a 21st user signs in, they will not be able to access a Cloud PC until another user signs out.
-And unlike the dedicated mode, Windows 365 Frontline experience where Cloud PCs are stopped and started according to employees working hours, these are always running and ready to go. I’ll keep the defaults for the rest to save time and confirm. And that’s it. We’ve configured Windows 365 Frontline experiences for dedicated and shared mode use cases.
-Then once services are up and running, you can monitor the experiences and usage of Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs. For example, if we fast forward in time a little, here, you can see that the shared Cloud PC that I just provisioned are occasionally hitting our peak number of 20 sign-in users active across all 20 Cloud PCs. And the good news is that we have options to help.
-First, you can expand the Cloud PC limit as needed, where here you might want to change the count from 20 to 25, or you can set policies to automatically end sessions after a defined number of idle minutes. Here, the end, a disconnected session option, after one minute of idle time locks the screen, but the session remains active.
-The next control is a time limit that signs the user out, in this case after five minutes, and this frees Cloud PCs up faster for other employees. Additionally, you have options to reprovision Cloud PCs as needed. This is something that you might want to do as you update your Cloud PCs or the underlying Windows image used to provision them.
-From an existing provisioning policies properties, you can choose to reprovision assigned Cloud PCs immediately and set the percentage of these Cloud PCs that you want to ensure are still available for use as the update rolls out. And coming soon, you’ll also be able to reprovision the Cloud PCs assigned to a provisioning policy on a weekly or monthly schedule at the time you choose. This way you can ensure that your Cloud PCs do not drift from your desired state.
-So with Windows 365 Frontline, you now have tailored options to choose from for expanding access to Cloud PCs to your entire organization while also optimizing costs. To get started and find out more, check out aka.ms/Windows365Frontline and keep watching Microsoft Mechanics, subscribe, and thanks for watching.
