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Windows 365: Ask Microsoft Anything

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Wednesday, Jul 21, 2021, 01:00 PM PDT
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Get answers to your questions about Windows 365, the end user experience, the IT admin experience, and how you can manage Cloud PCs using the same workflows and tools you use today with traditional P...
Heather_Poulsen
Updated Dec 27, 2024
AMA
bdam55's avatar
bdam55
Iron Contributor
Jul 17, 2021

Can you elaborate on the management story a bit lot?

>Procure, provision, and deploy in minutes, with optional automated OS updates (here).
When you say 'optional automated OS updates' what does that mean exactly? Is that a built-in feature of W365 or just referring to it being auto-enrolled into Intune which will manage updates?  In other words: is there a feature here that auto-magically keeps the golden image up to date and abstracts that away from the user entirely?

 

It's clear that W365 Enterprise can automatically provision the device into Intune which is great.  Is that also true for customer provided images?  Is there a way to provision a Enterprise Cloud PC without Intune if that's not the customer's chosen device management solution?

The 'Getting Started' article mentions ConfigMgr and co-management. Is it safe to say then that you could provision an Enterprise Cloud PC, have it automatically enroll into Intune and have Intune/GPO/whatever deliver the ConfigMgr client to put it in co-management? Or is there a more direct-to-ConfigMgr co-management pathway that I'm missing?

 

Lastly, not a lot has been said about the (small) Business Edition. There's no assumed Intune license to enroll with but post provisioning what are the options?  Can they enroll them into Intune? ConfigMgr? 3rd Party Tool of their choice?

Thanks again, excited about getting this into the hands of customers.
   Bryan

Saud Al-Mishari's avatar
Saud Al-Mishari
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jul 21, 2021
Hi Bryan, We have two options to provide update. For our gallery image, we will maintain those for new provisioned devices (so we keep the image up to date). Once provisioned, you're correct and the Cloud PCs are updated by Microsoft Endpoint Manager. For customer provided images, they are automatically MDM enrolled into Microsoft Endpoint Manager as part of provisioning. Yes, it is possible to then enable co-management in MEM between Intune and Configuration Manager. The best way to do this is to allow Intune to install the ConfigMgr client similar to Autopilot. You can use the steps from the existing ConfigMgr docs for this: see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/mem/configmgr/core/clients/deploy/deploy-clients-to-windows-computers#bkmk_mdm. One recommendation would be to disable AD System Discovery in SCCM/ConfigMgr for the OU where the Windows 365 Cloud PCs are provisioned. This will help prevent a race condition between client push installation and Intune push installation. On Windows 365 Business - it does not include integration with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Customers are free to layer their management solution of choice, including MEM, on that like they would with physical PCs on their devices. Hopefully I have answered all your questions - if not let me know and we'll get them answered 😊
  • bdam55's avatar
    bdam55
    Iron Contributor
    Jul 21, 2021
    Thanks Saud! Is it correct to say then that there's no way to have an Enterprise Cloud PC without MEM? Sure, you could conceivably lay some other management tool on top of that (ex. PDQ, Altiris) but that it would have to coexists with MEM.
    • Saud Al-Mishari's avatar
      Saud Al-Mishari
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
      Jul 21, 2021
      That's correct - they would have to co-exist and customers would have to manage any policy/configuration conflict between the management solutions.
    • bdam55's avatar
      bdam55
      Iron Contributor
      Jul 21, 2021
      Oh, and can you clarify what the 'optional automated OS updates' refers to in the 'Getting Started page?'.
      • Saud Al-Mishari's avatar
        Saud Al-Mishari
        Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
        Jul 21, 2021
        That specifically refers to Windows Update for Business, though you could leverage ConfigMgr for software updates if you wanted to (to match existing devices). Regardless of post-provisioning management, we do maintain the gallery images behind the scenes regardless.
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Jul 21, 20211:00 PM - 2:00 PM PDT