(gentle music)
- Coming up, we take a first look at what's coming
for your PC in the cloud with Windows 365,
including deeper Windows 11 integration
with capabilities for booting directly
to your Cloud PC for simpler and secure access,
the new Windows 365 App experience,
as well as faster switching
from your local device to your Cloud PC using desktops.
And then for admins, we'll show you how set up
and management just got a lot easier
with native, fully cloud-managed
Azure Active Directory authentication
for your Windows 365 Cloud PCs, and the new Windows 365
Business simplified admin experience, and much more.
And to walk us through everything I'm joined today
by Scott Manchester, the lead engineer
for Windows 365, welcome.
- Thanks for having me back Jeremy.
It's great to be here again.
- And thanks so much for joining us today.
And it's really one of my favorite topics.
You know, last time you were on the show
we actually announced Windows 365
as the way to access your PC streaming from the cloud.
And if you missed that show, you can check that out
at aka.ms/Windows365Mechanics.
And I know that you and team have been working hard
on making the service even better.
- Yeah, we have.
There's a lot we've been doing
for both the user and admin experience.
So really the premise of Windows 365 has been
to modernize the way Windows experiences are delivered
from the cloud to anyone on practically
any device to provide a consistent,
and familiar experience for users.
And it's easy for IT to deploy
and manage using familiar tools.
And so we really have been continuing
our journey in these areas.
With Windows 11, we're now able to take
the experience to the next level,
and deeply integrate Cloud PC capabilities directly
into the Windows shell from the moment you power on
your device to seamlessly accessing your Cloud PC
from a running Windows session.
- And today we get a first look at some of
the new capabilities that are coming to Windows 365.
And I'd love to start with what you were just talking about
in terms of powering on the device, so what's new there?
- Sure, what's really core to the Cloud PC experience
is ease of access; getting to your Cloud PC
should be just as easy as getting to your local desktop.
So I'm going to start with a first look
at a completely new way to access Windows 365
that allows you to boot directly to your Cloud PC.
So I'll power it on, and it's going to take me
to my normal secure Windows 11 login experience.
Windows Hello recognizes me here.
And then you'll see it's connecting directly to my Cloud PC.
There's no extra steps or apps to open, I'm just in.
And it's even better than cold booting
a local machine because everything is exactly how I left it.
Now you can even see, I have Excel
in the taskbar already running.
In this case, I'll click on it.
So I can more easily get back to what I was working on
when I logged in last time.
- This is really a huge time saver, especially compared
to accessing a traditional remote desktop.
- Yeah, that's by design.
As you saw, my device was configured
to connect directly to my Cloud PC at log in.
But just to unpack some of the magic,
let me show you how this works behind the scenes.
What makes this possible is that
this device has Windows installed locally.
And as an IT admin, you'll be able to configure
that device using Microsoft Endpoint Manager
to enable users to directly access
their Windows 365 Cloud PC.
That way during login, Windows makes the direct connection
between the user account and their Cloud PC.
And once the user's authenticated,
their Windows 365 session streams directly
from the cloud without any additional steps.
This is also a great option
for frontline workers using shared devices,
where each user can sign into their individual Cloud PCs
and devices can be passed from one user to another,
for example, with each new shift.
- And because that Cloud PC's always connected to
your management infrastructure, it's going to stay secure,
up-to-date, and well managed from the IT perspective.
But I bet a lot of people that are watching
are wondering, you know, what happens
if their device isn't a corporate provided machine
that's solely used for work?
You know, we've all kind of felt this
from a hybrid work perspective.
We're going to use our computers a lot,
our personal computers, to access both our personal stuff,
as well as our work environment, so what's new there?
- Yes, that's the reality for a lot of us today.
We are developing a few solutions to make
bring your own PC work seamlessly with Windows 365.
Let me start with a first look at the new Windows 365 App,
which will be pre-installed in a future release
of Windows 11, and it can also be installed on Windows 10.
And the first time I run it, you'll see we've made it easy
for users to get up to speed on the service,
learn about available controls, how to get started,
along with updates to the Windows 11 integrated experience.
Now, from here, I can see the Cloud PCs available
to me, in my case, it's just one,
and I can even see its specs.
This is now a consistent experience
across the web and Windows client by design.
And beyond accessing your Cloud PCs,
it also lets you manage or troubleshoot them, depending
on what your administrator has enabled for you.
Now you can see, in my case, I have every option enabled.
I can restart it, I can also reset it back
to its original configuration, or restore it
to a previously known good state and point-in-time.
Now, I can resize my Cloud PC if I need more horsepower,
or rename it, or troubleshoot it right from here.
And again, as an enterprise admin you will have full control
over which options are displayed here.
So I'll go ahead and connect to my Cloud PC,
and you can see I'm right back where I left off.
- And this is really a lot more user friendly than some
of the traditional remote desktop apps that we're used to.
- Right, and I mentioned there are a lot
of options for switching between context
to let you work from the device you want,
and still seamlessly switch between your local
and Cloud PC with a fast, integrated, and modern experience.
So this is an early look of the integration we're building
with Cloud PCs using desktops and Windows.
If you aren't familiar with desktops, using
the task view control in the taskbar allows you
to create customize, and move between desktops.
Notice this new option on the right,
which allows me to now quickly switch
from my local desktop environment
to my Cloud PC directly from here.
I can even see a preview of what's running on it.
Now, once I click it, I access my Cloud PC instantly.
And now, it's streaming in this desktop from Windows 365.
And the magic works both ways.
When I open task view from my Cloud PC
it's just as easy to hop back on my local personal device.
And, by the way, this also works
with touch gestures and shortcut keys.
- You know, and if you've used desktops
in the past this is a lot easier to set up compared
to other remote desktop options.
Now, for all the admins who are watching, why don't we take
a look at some of the updates that are coming
to the Endpoint Manager experience for managing Windows 365?
- Of course, as we improve the user experience
there's also a bunch of things we've been working on
to make setup and management easier.
And this is based on all of your feedback.
By far the most requested feature was for Windows 365
to work with cloud native Azure Active Directory
authentication using Azure AD Join, let me show you.
So I'm in the Endpoint Manager admin center,
and to set up Azure AD Join in Windows 365
you just need to create a provisioning policy.
So let's create a new one, and give it a name.
In the Join type details, I'll just keep
the default here, Azure AD Join.
For the network, now you don't even need
an existing Azure virtual network running,
but that's still an option if you prefer.
You can just do use the Microsoft hosted network option
and choose your region, in this case,
I'll pick US West 3, and that's it.
That means there's no servers,
domain connections, or Azure VNets to manage.
And if you need connectivity back to your on-prem network
you can just use a VPN client,
like you would with a physical PC now.
- Right, and once you have this configured
the nice thing is your Cloud PC
can still access local resources on-prem
and you only need to use Azure AD Join,
which is a lot easier to manage to get them authenticated.
So it's the best of both worlds.
- Yeah, it really is.
And another highly requested capability
we're building is point-in-time restore.
Now this lets you get back to a known healthy state
in case anything happens to make the system unstable,
like an unwanted app or driver install.
Now by default, the service has 10 restore points.
Four are built in for the weekly backups,
and now you can configure the remaining six based
on your preferences, let me show you.
You can configure this in the User Settings tab.
So I'll add a new one here, and give it a name.
Now here under Point-in-time restore service
you have full control over how frequently
these restore points are captured, with options
from every four hours to up to 24 hours.
And of course, this isn't a global setting.
You can assign individual settings by group.
And we're also making point-in-time restore available
onto smaller organizations with Windows 365 Business.
- And that's a perfect segue because I think it'd be great
to show some of the updates that are coming
for the smaller organizations
that are using Windows 365 Business.
- So we know that the big thing here is simplicity.
Let me walk you through the new updated portal experience.
The new Windows 365 Business Portal lets you easily see
your organization's Cloud PC users in one view.
And you can access common organizational level settings
like the account type with standard user,
or local administrator accounts.
And you can also choose the default Windows version,
either Windows 10 or Windows 11.
If I make changes here, any new Cloud PC I create
from this point forward will have these settings.
I won't make any changes, in my case,
and just close this view.
And it's super easy to add users too, let me show you how.
So I'll add a user, then in Edit Products
I just need to choose which licenses to assign.
Microsoft 365 Business is already selected, in my case,
so I'll just choose a Cloud PC size.
I'll add this one with two cores,
eight GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, then I'll hit update.
Now from here, I'll just add their first name,
then last name, and a username, then a password.
And once I click add user, that's it.
Now if I want to make changes to my existing Cloud PCs
I can also do that from here as well.
I'll click into Adele Vance, take a look at
the devices she already has provisioned,
and I can access common admin controls and tasks.
For example, I might want to restart
or reset her Cloud PC, or rename it.
I'll do that here and change this to Adele Vance - Work PC.
Now if Adele is a power user and I want to
change her account type to be a local administrator
I can also do that from here as well.
And by the way, all of these controls are available
to end users but, like I showed you, you can also make
these changes on their behalf using the portal.
Everything you're seeing is also fully integrated
with Microsoft 365 admin center so that the actions you take
in the Windows 365 Business portal are also reflected
in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and vice versa.
Also, for partners watching, Windows 365
is fully integrated the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse portal,
with centralized status monitoring
across all of the Cloud PCs and organizations you manage.
And we'll also show you the network connection
and status across your tenants.
- So just a ton of great updates then
for users of Windows 365, our admins,
and also our partners, and small businesses.
So what's the team working on next?
- Well, one of the more innovative capabilities
we're developing for the future is offline support.
That's going to be great if you're a traveler
and for those cases where you might not have
a consistent connection to the cloud.
So here's the first look at what's coming in the future.
You'll be able to cache what's necessary
to run your Cloud PC offline on a premium Windows endpoint.
And if the connection drops, you'll be able
to continue working on your Cloud PC offline.
So if you're on a flight and don't have wifi
you can stay productive with your apps
and content while you're disconnected.
Then once you reconnect to the internet,
you're back online and anything you did
while you were working offline will re-sync
with what's running in the cloud.
So you can keep working without interruptions,
and without a constant connection to the internet.
- Very cool, so your Cloud PC then stays
in sync with your local PC.
So, for everyone who's watching at home,
what's the best way to get started with Windows 365?
- So it's pretty simple, you can find everything you need
to get started at windows365.com.
And as you saw, we keep adding capabilities based
on your feedback so please keep it coming
at aka.ms/W365feedback.
- Thanks so much, Scott, for joining us today,
and sharing what's coming for Windows 365.
Of course, keep watching Microsoft Mechanics
to stay up-to-date with all the latest tech
across Microsoft and subscribe to our channel,
if you haven't already and, as always,
thank you so much for watching.
(gentle music)