coming up on microsoft mechanics we
continue our series on windows 365 to
take a closer look at your options for
getting everything up and running we're
gonna explore the prerequisites and what
the imaging and provisioning process
looks like as well as ongoing management
so today i'm joined by engineering lead
kristin brinkoff welcome to the show
thanks for having me thanks so much for
joining us today so we just announced
windows 365 and if you're new to it it's
a cloud pc that lets you securely stream
your windows experience including your
desktop your apps your settings your
content really about any device and if
you've missed our introduction with
scott manchester you can find that at
aka that ms slash cloud pc mechanics one
of the more important points here is
really keeping everything simple and
familiar from a deployment configuration
perspective so if you're a device admin
right now it's gonna be really easy to
get everything started and up and
running with windows 365. so christian
can you walk us through that setup
experience yeah sure so let's start by
going over the prerequisites so the
first thing you will need is an azure
subscription
to connect to your current on-premises
environment next in azure active
directory you will want to get your
directory service wired up using hybrid
igd join and then on azure network
controls you will need to ensure your
cloud pc can access any necessary
on-premises resources
this makes it possible to reach your
file servers your local internet for
example
importantly your dns service needs to
work and be properly configured this is
also important because your cloud pcs
will be assigned to this virtual network
in a later step okay so once you have
your on-prem network and domain
connected to azure how do we start
building and assigning our cloud pcs
then to users so there are a few ways to
do this you can either start with the
user or build the environment and
provisioning policies and then assign
users in our case we will start with the
user so first you or your licensing
admin will need to import users into the
microsoft 365 admin center so in active
users i can select mason my a newborn
son an avid windows user as well
so you can see we have purchased two of
the different cloud pc options to meet
the needs of our light users to power
users so i will give mason a general
purpose windows 365 enterprise cloud pc
which is optimized for a microsoft 365
apps and this was the more manual
approach but of course you can also
build assigned licenses by either group
or via powershell and for guidance on
choosing the right cloud pc for your
specific user types you can check out
aka.cpc sizing okay so now mason is
licensed but is there anything else that
needs to happen for him to get up and
running yes you need to configure the
cloud pc environment in microsoft
endpoint manager so in fact this will be
where you will spend most of the time
managing your cloud pcs just like you're
probably doing now managing your windows
devices in terms of roles you will
perform the initial setup as an engine
administrator and with the owner rights
to the azure subscription where the
virtual network lives so for your
day-to-day operations we even created a
new role for windows 365
called the cloud pc administrator now
let's create a connection to configure
the network for our cloud pcs that we
set up earlier as a prerequisite in
azure this is specific to your cloud pc
so they can reach your on-premises
network across clouds or your private
clouds as well as your other cloud pcs
here we will define the connection name
select our subscription then my resource
group
next my network and finally the subnet
then we will put in the active directory
dns name optionally an organizational
unit but i will skip this and then i
will input the active directory username
as a user principle name
and a password and then one more time to
confirm and then hit next
next i can go ahead and create the
connection
this process will also kick off the
watchdog service this is our service
that works behind the scenes to validate
your connection settings and it will
make sure that your connections are
healthy or alert you when they are not
with recommended actions
so everything looks good i can see azure
active directory device inc and our
numbers of ips available in the subnet
are green
but if you hit a snag like you can see
here in my other tenants you get an
alert with proactive recommendations
here for example i'm notified that my
active directory is not configured
properly and i can see how to fix it
okay so now we've licensed a few users
we've wired up our networked resources
then our users like mason ready to go so
there's one more step that needs to
happen before they can log on so we
still need to create a provisioning
policy and map this will kick off the
provisioning of mason's cloud pc and
others that are as you can see currently
in a not provisioned state the
provisioning policy process is the core
configuration for your cloud pcs so
let's create one i need to give it a
name and whatever name you give it is
how your cloud pcs appears to users in
the cloud pc portal so try to make sure
that you choose a user friendly name
like east us finance users for your
finance department on the east coast
and remember the v-net we created
earlier here is where you will specify
the use of that virtual network location
for your cloud pcs
note that you can have more than one
v-net depending on your regional needs
and after that
you have to select the image of windows
you want you can use gallery images
available with microsoft teams and the
microsoft 365 apps for enterprise
pre-installed and optimized for cloud pc
out of the box the nice thing about
these gallery images is that they are
always kept up to date and you will use
mem to layer on additional apps policies
and customizations once the cloud pc
comes alive and you also have the option
to continue using your own custom images
with everything you need pre-installed
right and this is really using the
shared image gallery service under the
cover so for example if you have an
automated imaging process right now you
can keep doing that with your cloud pcs
and also the nice thing here is that
these get geographically replicated so
that your deployment source can stay
local to where your users are so
christian what's next then so now we
just need to assign this policy to a
group
so i will assign this one based on the
department name of my users so i will
choose finance users here and after that
i get a summary screen
next when i confirm this is correct it
will start provisioning a cloud pc for
anyone in this group where the windows
365 license design and this process will
take a few minutes
here we'll see that the status displays
provisioned
for the cloud pcs with the image we just
selected but of course
we will want to make sure that standard
settings and configurations are applied
to these cloud pcs
so from here the nice thing is that you
can use the same app and policy
configurations you would normally use in
mm for any other managed device
so in my case i will click into all apps
and then you will see all my line of
business apps and other standard apps
in fact most of these applications are
assigned to all windows devices so if
that's the case
all your cloud pcs will just get them
and no additional work is required
or if you want to deploy a new app to my
cloud pcs i can click into one like
notepad plus plus and then next i will
go into properties
and edit and then assignments for
deployment
i will add my new group of cloud pcs
into it now it will deploy to current
and future members of that group
and i can repeat this process for any
other apps as well and by the way mem
also supports msx packages so a big part
of microsoft endpoint manager though is
the policy and the settings
configuration management so are those
controls also shared now with cloud pcs
yes your cloud pcs can be managed in the
same way with configuration profiles
compliancy policies and other controls
so in this case i'll exclude my cloud
pcs from a policy which doesn't make
sense for them i will choose this one
with wi-fi policies again go into
assignments for exclusion and then add
my group and save it again i will repeat
this process for any other
configurations
this includes conditional access scripts
update policies and more okay so now
your cloud pcs are business ready with
all the apps and policies that are
needed so can we take a look then what
the user experience looks like yeah
let's try it out so from edge i'm
navigating directly into the cloud pc
portal it will prompt me to sign in
and then i will enter in my username my
cloud pc is configured to use
multi-factor authentication with
conditional access and with passwordless
authentication and once i match the
number and approve this is the portal
where you access your cloud pc and there
it is i can join here straight away from
the browser or you can download and
install native apps for windows mac os
android and ios of course for linux you
can use the browser and we have also a
partner solution and a first party app
coming soon here there are options for
restart rename and troubleshooting
available
so now we'll open my cloud pc in the
browser it will ask me for permission to
access my local devices like clipboard
printer microphone or access my local c
drive if my it has given me those
permissions
so now i'll enter in my domain passwords
and once i do that
i'm in
you can see that our user-specific
policies are getting applied and our
device settings have been applied before
i log in
i can open the start menu and i can see
that my
acquired apps are pre-installed
you will also notice that notepad plus
plus
is here already and our mem policies
have been applied as well
and because we are using onedrive known
folder move and enterprise state roaming
and edge browser sync settings your
desktop files docs pictures will be
there as well as your roaming settings
like your desktop background and
personalization
at an edge as you can see here
you are syncing your favorites your
browser history and your browser
extensions okay so now you're set up and
ready to use your cloud pc from just
about any modern browser but how would
you sign in then with the native apps
and what are the benefits of using those
native apps versus the browser so these
apps will give you a lot more
capabilities especially when it comes to
accessing your local devices like your
webcam your monitors usb bus and more
plus on the software side you will get
microsoft teams optimizations start menu
integration and more
and with any of these apps installed you
need to configure a few more things to
connect to your cloud pc so we start
with subscribing the user into the app
then your azure id credentials including
mfa assuming that that's being
configured now we'll choose my cloud pc
and then you will need to enter in your
local domain credentials your username
your password and by the way this also
works with windows hello additionally
actually join authentication and single
sign-on is coming soon but for now you
can also save your credentials in the
local credentials store on your device
by clicking the remember me checkbox so
you won't get prompted for credentials
next time so now i'm logged into my
cloud pc and have additional
capabilities i mentioned before compared
to the browser experience so for example
i can go into display settings and you
can see that i have two monitors
connected to this cloud pc and my webcam
fire the windows camera apps as well
cool and those are all really great
capabilities as we've shown in the past
you also have something called teams av
redirect pre-configured so that way your
webcam actually acts like a direct feed
between the devices accessing your cloud
pc and other devices to really avoid lag
improve quality and also reduce cpu and
ram usage on your cloud pc so for the
people who are watching and want to get
started with windows 365 what do you
recommend so you can access the trial
for windows 365 now at ak dot omg cpc
trial and start testing the user
experience
and for a detailed step-by-step guide
for setting up windows 365 check out my
comprehensive blog at ak dot slash
deploy cpc
so i hope you are ready to kick the
tires on this new cool service thanks so
much for joining us today christian a
great overview on windows 365.
of course to stay up to date with all
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watching we'll see you soon
you