Hybrid work and elastic workforces create new scenarios which leaves room for new solutions. Which is why we developed Windows 365 Enterprise edition – to offer a new set of capabilities, in a simple to implement package to help companies address these challenges.
Today, as a companion to our depth on demand session, I want to outline some of the newest capabilities available to Windows 365 Enterprise edition – the Cloud PC solution for organizations with 300 employees or more. We also recommend Windows 365 Enterprise edition for small and medium-sized customers using Microsoft Endpoint Manager to manage its devices. You'll also get a peek into some features we'll be rolling out soon.
Consistent with the flow of the video this post will cover the following:
- New web experience for end users
- Windows 11 support
- Restore points
- Remoting Connection report
- Resource Performance report
- Resize a Cloud PC
- IT alerting
New web experience for end users
The first thing you'll notice in the video (after my bad acting) is the new web experience for Windows 365 end users. It's streamlined, minimizing distractions so that users can get right to work. For those that want to change local resource setting (printer, microphone, and alternative keyboard layouts) they can now do so before or after accessing their Windows 365 Cloud PC. To enable the new web experience select what's new from the Windows 365 landing page then toggle on the "New Windows 365 experience."
Windows 11 support
Companies will also be pleased to see that Windows 11 is fully supported in Windows 365 Cloud PCs. This is great news for organizations eager to roll out Windows 11, but who don't currently meet the minimum hardware requirements. With Windows 365 Enterprise those security benefits and experience improvements are deployed to your users right away. With Windows 11, the baselines for security have been raised to give more confidence to our customers from the chip to the cloud. Windows 365 helps you get the Windows 11 modern PC experience faster and protect from both common and sophisticated attacks like ransomware and more sophisticated attacks from nation-states.
Here are some of the benefits with Windows 365 running on Windows 11.
- Selectable OS (Windows 10/Windows 11) at purchase
- New Windows 11 marketplace images with Microsoft 365 apps
- Next generation endpoint security
(vTPM 2.0 chip) - New Windows 11 marketplace images with Microsoft 365 apps
- Simplify securing Cloud PCs with Security Baselines
- Easy to distinguish Windows 10 & Windows 11 Cloud PCs
Restore points
Next in the video we provided a quick look into the types of value you'll get when we roll out restore points. These point-in-time full-PC snapshots provide multiple short-term and long-term restore points. With Windows 365 Enterprise, Administrators (and end users, if enabled) may initiate a Cloud PC restore whenever needed. This is a powerful tool in the face of ransomware, user mistakes, and really on any support issue where you want to hit the easy button!
After restore we highlighted the power of data and insights via two reports that are now available in public preview.
Remoting Connection report
The Remoting Connection report provides visibility to the quality of your users' connections, both in terms of the initial connection time and the ongoing Cloud PC responsiveness. Now, even when users are connecting from unmanaged networks around the globe, you'll be able to see if there are any issues with their remoting experience, providing you the opportunity for quicker issue identification and deployment optimization.
Resource Performance report
The Resource Performance report provides visibility into CPU and RAM utilization for your Windows 365 Cloud PCs so you can ensure your users have right-sized machines to be productive. It includes insights across all of your Cloud PCs (that can be tracked against target baselines you define) as well as drilldowns into SKUs/models and even individual Cloud PCs. When you see Cloud PCs that are consistently not providing sufficient resources for the user to be productive, you'll see recommendations to resize.
Resize a Cloud PC
With Windows 365 Cloud PCs, we have made the process of resizing easy. If device scores based on compute resources (CPU and RAM) are lower than the baseline, admins get a recommendation to take a resize action which will provide more compute resources to the user in a matter of minutes.
IT alerting
Finally, we provided a sneak peek into the administrative alerting capabilities we're actively building right into Microsoft Endpoint Manager. This will provide IT admins a way to monitor objects and be notified when they are in a Warning or Failure state. For example, since Windows 365 continuously monitors the health of your On-Prem Network Connection you can configure these alerts to notify you immediately if something goes wrong (e.g. your domain controller goes down).
Windows 365 Enterprise edition is built to deliver simple, scalable and predictable service to enable your hybrid workforce. We believe the fastest path to the promised land is through close collaboration with our customers, so please continue to provide us with feedback so we can grow Windows 365 together!
Here are some quick links to learn more and stay engaged:
- Watch more Windows 365 Microsoft Ignite sessions at aka.ms/W365AtIgnite
- Learn more at windows365.com
- Follow aka.ms/W365AADJPreview for updates on the Azure AD Join Preview
- Share feedback at aka.ms/w365feedback
- See product roadmap at aka.ms/w365roadmap
- Stay on top of new features at aka.ms/w365whatsnew