Windows 10

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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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 enrollment attestation

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This week is all about adding an additional layer of protection to the enrollment of Windows devices. That additional layer of protection is Windows enrollment attestation. Windows enrollment attestation is focused on making the process of enrolling into Microsoft Intune more secure and trustworthy for Windows devices. It relies on using the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) to store the private keys of the MDM certificate from Microsoft Intune and the access token from Microsoft Entra. That information is attested during the enrollment of Windows devices, making it less prone to tampering. That should provide better protection against attackers that for example steal an Intune MDM certificate. This blog post will start with a brief introduction about Windows enrollment attestation, followed with the central insights and …

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Working with support approved elevations

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This week is all about highlighting some recent functionalities that have been introduced in Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM). The most important functionality is probably the newly supported file extensions of .msi and .ps1. That provides a larger footprint for EPM in the world of often elevated file extensions. The same experience as already known for executables. Besides that, there is more new functionality within EPM that might even be more powerful. That functionality is support approved elevations. Support approved elevations allow IT administrators to require approval before an elevation is allowed. That makes sure that when a user tries to run a file in an elevated context that the user is prompted to submit an elevation request. That request is sent to Intune for a …

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Understanding enrollment restrictions for Windows devices

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This week is a follow up to the post of last week. That post was focused on understanding corporate identifiers for Windows devices. A method to identify specific devices as corporate Windows devices, which is especially useful in combination with Windows Autopilot device preparation. This post will actually add-on to those corporate identifiers, by focusing on enrollment restrictions for Windows devices. Enrollment restrictions for Windows devices can be used to restrict devices from enrolling in Microsoft Intune. The main differentiators so far, however, were the ownership and OS version of the devices. But something changed in that area as well. With the assignment of device enrollment restrictions for Windows devices it’s now also possible to use specific filters. Using those filters provides more granularity in …

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Understanding corporate identifiers for Windows devices

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This week is sort of a follow up to the post of last week. That post was focused on understanding enrollment time grouping in Windows Autopilot device preparation. This post will focus on corporate identifiers for Windows devices. Corporate device identifiers are an important, but not required, addition to the Windows Autopilot device preparation experience. As the concept of Windows Autopilot device preparation is slightly different compared to the Windows Autopilot deployment profiles, there are also different requirements to still register a device as a corporate device. There is no longer the requirement to register devices with the Windows Autopilot deployment service. That, however, also means that there must be something different to make sure that only trusted devices can go through the Windows Autopilot …

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Getting started with the Remote Help web app

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This week is all about the Remote Help web app. Remote Help on itself is nothing new, but it does have an often overlooked feature that can be useful in multiple occasions. That feature is the Remote Help web app. The Remote Help web app can be used to help users on managed and unmanaged devices, without installing the Remote Help app, and in some scenarios even on Linux devices. The former might sound a little bit weird, but due to the nature of the web app, it does technically work in some scenarios to provide support on Linux. Together that makes the Remote Help web app an interesting feature to be familiar with. It is good to know that the web app only supports …

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Smoothly introducing new feature updates for Windows 11 as optional updates

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This week is all about a new method to smoothly introduce a new feature update within the organization. That new method is the ability to create a feature update deployment policy with the option to make the new feature update available as an optional update. By making the latest feature update, or any other feature update that eventually must be deployed, available as an optional update, the user is still in control of actually installing the update. That leaves the IT administrator in control of making the feature update available and the user in control of the installation. Doing that, adds an easy step to smoothly introducing a new feature update in the organization. Besides a smooth process, this also provides an easy start when …

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