Microsoft Intune

Adding additional hardware properties to the device inventory

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This week is all about enhancing the device inventory for Windows devices. Device inventory is a new feature in Microsoft Intune that is specifically focused on enhancing the existing device inventory for Windows devices. That enables the IT administrator to add additional hardware properties to the existing inventory of Windows devices, by relying on the available properties in the Intune data platform. The additional hardware properties can help the organization to better understand the state of the Windows devices and to make potential business decisions based on that information. It really adds additional insights into Microsoft Intune that help with getting in more control and getting better overviews of the Windows devices within the environment. Basically, getting richer reporting information. This blog post will start …

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Enabling hotpatch for Windows 11 Enterprise

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This week is all about the latest changes in updating Windows 11 devices. That change is the introduction of hotpatch updates for Windows 11 Enterprise. Hotpatching helps organizations with keeping Windows secure, while minimizing the disruptions for the user. A significant step in keeping Windows more secure and productive. Hotpatching removes the requirement for Windows devices to reboot after every update installation, while still providing a complete set of security fixes. That’s exactly the point of importance for the user experience, as the device has less required reboots. This post will start with a brief introduction about Windows hotpatch, followed with the configuration steps. This post will end with experiencing the configuration. Note: The hotpatch technology is already being used for two years on Windows …

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Working with device compliance for Windows Subsystem for Linux

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This week is all about the device compliance capabilities for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL is a feature of Windows that allows the user to run a Linux environment on their Windows device, without needing a separate VM or a dual boot. It’s designed to provide a seamless experience for users that want to use Windows and Linux at the same time. By default, Ubuntu is used as the Linux distribution. There are, however, more options such as Debian, Kali, and SUSE. For the IT administrator it’s good to have the ability to be able to check the Linux distribution and version that is used. That can be achieved by using device compliance policies, as there is now a section specifically focused on adding …

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Managing automatic switching in Microsoft Edge for Business

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This week is all about Microsoft Edge for Business and the automatic switching feature. Microsoft Edge for Business is the dedicated Microsoft Edge experience that is created for work accounts. It provides IT administrators with the capabilities to provide users with a productive and secure browsing experience across managed and unmanaged devices. That includes the ability to manage the automatic switching behavior between work and personal profiles. Automatically switching between profiles can help users to keep their work and personal browsing separate. When the device has an existing work profile, it enables automatic switching when adding a personal profile, to enforce the browsing context separation. That behavior can also be managed. The automatic switching is not always desirable, or sometimes needs some tuning. This post will …

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Configuring Google Chrome for usage with device-based Conditional Access

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This week is sort of a follow-up on last week. Last week the focus was on configuring Mozilla Firefox for usage with device-based Conditional Access, while this week the focus is on configuring Google Chrome for usage with device-based Conditional Access. That is already a supported scenario for many years, but in the early days that would require the Windows Accounts extension. That, however, has changed, making it easier to configure without installing a specific extension in the browser. Nowadays, there is a setting available that can be configured to automatically sign-in user accounts backed by a Microsoft Cloud identity provider. So, that’s even easier to configure. Especially when knowing that Microsoft Intune has Google Chrome configuration options directly available via the Settings Catalog. Minor …

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Configuring Mozilla Firefox for usage with device-based Conditional Access

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This week is all about managing and configuring Mozilla Firefox, with the main focus on using it with device-based Conditional Access. When looking specifically at Conditional Access, Mozilla Firefox is nowadays a supported browser for device-based Conditional Access scenarios on devices running Windows 10 and later. That is of course a really good thing, but it does require a specific configuration that should be in place within the browser. A single configuration that could be a real lifesaver on managed devices. Even better, on managed devices that configuration can also be set by using Microsoft Intune. To facilitate that, Mozilla provides easy configuration options via Group Policy templates. This blog post will provide a brief overview of importing those settings, followed with the steps to …

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Updating Enterprise App Catalog apps

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This week is all about creating awareness about the recently introduced functionality to easily update apps from the Enterprise App Catalog. The Enterprise App Catalog is part of Enterprise App Management and provides a collection of apps that are prepared by Microsoft for usage within Microsoft Intune. This new functionality provides IT administrators with a guided experience for updates that are available for apps within the catalog. That starts with a brief overview of the available updates for apps that are used from the catalog, and that overview results in to a pretty straight forward guided experience for updating a specific app. That guided experience eventually creates a new Win32 app that supersedes the current version of the app, and that can be deployed towards …

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Limiting access to apps during non-working time

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This week is all about a relatively new functionality for limiting access to apps on iOS and Android devices during non-working time. Working time settings allow organizations to enforce policies that limit access to apps and to mute notification messages from apps during non-working time. Muting notifications is something that was already possible by using global quiet time, as described in this earlier post. Limiting access, however, is something relatively new that can be used for limiting access to specific apps during non-working time. That can be achieved by using app protection policies to block or warn users from using Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Edge on their iOS and Android devices, during non-working time. For that, a new setting is introduced in the conditional launch …

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Enabling optional Windows updates

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This week is all about enabling optional Windows updates. Enabling optional updates is all related to the Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available slider in the Settings app. That slider can be used to enable optional updates on a Windows device. Optional updates provide new features and non-security changes. Besides that, optional updates can also include features that are gradually rolled out. Those rollouts are also known as controlled feature rollouts (CFRs). Most of those optional updates are released on the fourth Tuesday of the month and are also known as non-security preview releases, while regular updates are released on the second Tuesday of the month. Nowadays, regular updates are also known as B week releases, while optional updates are also known as …

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Getting started with Windows protected print mode

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This week is all about another new feature within Windows 11, version 24H2. Mainly to create awareness. That new feature is Windows protected print mode. Windows protected print mode builds on top of the existing IPP print stack. Main enhancement is that only Mopria certified printers are supported and that it disables the ability to load third-party print drivers. Securing the printing stack has always been, and still remains, challenging. Mainly because it has to deal with compatibility of legacy drivers and high effective permissions of the printer drivers. That’s not all that easy to address. Windows protected print mode, however, is a step into the right direction. That adds some long-awaited improvements to the print security in Windows that should make the impact smaller of challenges …

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