Featured Windows 365 Intune

Windows 365: The easy intro

by Niklas Tinner a year ago 6 min read

Introduction

My first blog posts on Windows 365 were already 2 years old. This year I attended Workplace Ninja Summit in Switzerland and I got hooked by it again. Therefore I want to revive the topic on my blog now. This read is the first part of a Windows 365 series.

What is Windows 365?

Windows 365 brings the Windows experience to the cloud!

This means that Microsoft provides you a Cloud PC running Windows desktop in their datacenter, without the need to host it on your hardware. It is seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Intune and the Windows operating system, so you are enabled with ease.

Key questions & answers

How does it work?

Microsoft handles everything for you to start with Windows 365. All you need to do is:

Assign a license to a user
Create a provisioning policy
The provisioning of the Cloud PC automatically starts
Connect to your Cloud PC!

Windows 365 uses the virtual desktop infrastructure and technologies of Azure Virtual Desktop under the hood.

How do you access your Windows 365 desktop?

Windows 365 App or Remote Desktop available for Windows, macOS, iOS and Android
Native integration to Windows with Windows 365 Switch & Boot
Browser

Authenticate with your Microsoft Entra ID account to securely stream your pesonalized experience of Windows.

What is the difference between Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and Windows 365?

At a glance:

	Windows 365	Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)
Service type	Microsoft-managed, Windows as SaaS	Customer-managed on Microsoft infrastructure (PaaS)
Pricing	User license per month, fix price	Resource consumption-based in Azure
Setup	Simple and straightforward through Intune	More complex to configure the platform and management for highest flexibility
Affinity	Each user has a dedicated PC	Single- or multiuser pool

💡

It is not either or, but what fits better for the requirement!

What about the costs?

Purchase a fix price license, billed monthly per Cloud PC, based on the computing specifications and assign it to user. Learn more below.

How do you manage the Windows 365 Cloud PCs?

Everything can be done with Microsoft Intune. Adapt to familiar concepts when it comes to endpoint management and have your physical and virtual devices managed in a single-pane of glass experience.

Native integration of Windows 365 into Intune

Key features

Windows 365 has some specialities, that make it unique in the market.

Integration to Intune

The whole management of Windows 365 is found in Intune, which means that all of the phyiscal and virtual endpoint managment is powered by a single management platform. Organizations that already have Intune in place are familiar to how it works and the concept remains the same. Resources such as configuration profiles, apps, security baselines and RBAC can be re-used.

Intune + Windows 365 - a match made in heaven. Combine both to:

Provisiong and configure
Monitoring and reporting
Remote actions

View my full Intune series:

Key benefits

Provide a Windows desktop without acquiring hardware and comprehensive scalability
Simply deploy, manage and monitor Windows 365 Cloud PCs with cloud management
Integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem and technologies

💡

Organizations with a 'Microsoft first-party primary' strategy and Entra ID, Intune and Defender in place can profit from simple implementation & integration of Windows 365. This results in a reduction of total cost of ownership (TCO).

Windows native

Windows 365 is designed to be natively integrated with Windows and revolutionize the way we work with it.

Windows 365 Switch

In the Windows task view from the taskbar, you can switch directly to the cloud PC. Work side by side and switch from your phsyical device OS to the Cloud! This is part of Windows by design.

Source

Windows 365 Boot

After the boot of your Windows device you can authenticate and will directly be connected to your Cloud PC. The implementation can easily be achieved in the Intune portal with just a few settings. Add your desired boot device to a group and add it to Intune, so it receives all the necessary configurations and you are ready to go!

Source

Use cases

Let's talk about where you can unleash the power of Windows 365 with real world use-cases. Cloud PCs are more than just VDI. The technology described in this post shows that Microsoft puts in a lot of investment so that Windows 365 is perfectly integrated into their cloud ecosystem. You should also rethink your virtual desktop strategy because of this, coming from classic VDI to unified cloud endpoint management.

Bring your own PC

One scenario of BYOPC enables organizations to provide managed Cloud PC, independently of the underlying platform. With Windows 365 as a SaaS you can apply Conditional Access policies to define the access on the identity perimeter. Furthermore, the connection can be done from anywhere and any device, including personal devices.

Equip your (frontline) workers
Provide contractors and external workers
Ramp-up virtual desktops on company merges and acquisitions

Privileged Access Workstation (PAW)

Another scenario are Privileged Access Workstation (PAW), which must be isolated and highly secured environments where admins do work with privileged roles and access.
Implement Windows 365 for a dedicated and independent environment with custom policies applied to the identity perimeter and secure the Windows OS for special requirements.

Licensing

Windows 365 Cloud PCs are priced according to the computing specifications. This includes CPU, RAM and storage. Different plans are available:

View Windows 365 plans and pricing

Windows 365 is available in an Enterprise license, for employees who need anytime access to their Cloud PC and a Frontline license, for frontline workers who need access to their Cloud PC during their shift.

Windows 365 Enterprise	Windows 365 Frontline
Dedicated Cloud PC for only 1 user	Provision 3 Cloud PCs with 1 license, only 1 concurrent access
Personal access 24/7	Intended for shift workers or varying demand

It is important to mention that each user has his personalized, full Windows experience, inclduing storage.

ℹ️

For smaller organizations with less than 300 seats, Windows 365 Business might be the right choice with less managability & reporting options.

Technical design & architecture topics

Windows 365 Cloud PC
- Provisioning
  - License type
  - Entra single sign-on
  - Geography and region
  - Additional Services (Windows Autopatch)
- Network
  - Microsoft hosted network
  - Azure network connection (requires Azure resources)
- Join type
  - Entra
  - Hybrid Entra (requires Azure Network Connection)
- Images
  - Gallery images
  - Custom images
Client connectivity
- RDP Shortpath
Intune management, configuration and reporting
- Unique to Windows 365
  - Restore
  - Reprovision
  - Resize
  - Place Cloud PC under review

Learn more in the upcoming blog posts!

Community

As with most Microsoft technologies, there is a community for Windows 365 too. Visit https://w365community.com/