Welcome to the Windows 365 Interactive Demo
Windows 365, the world’s first Cloud PC, securely streams your desktop, apps, settings and content from the Microsoft cloud to all of your devices to provide a personalized Windows experience anywhere. Windows 365 extends end-user computing from the client to the cloud for business of all sizes, simplifying the experience with a complete service to securely buy, manage, and scale, all in one place.
Windows 365 comes in two versions: Enterprise Edition and Business Edition.
Enterprise Edition leverages Microsoft Endpoint Manager to enable customers to provision and manage Cloud PCs using the same skills they use to deploy physical PCs, fully integrated with Active Directory and built on Azure.
Business Edition is for any business, with no technology prerequisites, that requires fewer than 300 Cloud PCs. Simply utilize the Windows 365 cloud portal to purchase, deploy and manage Cloud PCs any time.
This interactive demo walks you through the Enterprise Edition experience, utilizing MEM to deploy and configure Cloud PCs and then reviewing analytics, troubleshooting and monitoring functionality in MEM that helps you ensure your deployment is running smoothly. You can use the interactive experience by following the prompts to click and fill out highlighted links and form fields, or you can simply sit back and watch.
To get started, choose a topic at left.
Only Microsoft can bring together the PC and the cloud with a consistent and integrated Windows experience. That’s Windows 365 – hybrid Windows for a hybrid world.
This exercise assumes that you have already purchased the appropriate Windows 365 license(s) in the Microsoft 365 admin center (https://admin.microsoft.com).
To learn more about the features and pricing for Windows 365 Enterprise consult this Microsoft site.
In the Microsoft 365 Admin center, click on Users in the left navigation.
In the left navigation, select Active Users
On the Active Users page, locate the user that you want to assign a Windows 365 - Cloud PC license. In this case, select Allan Deyoung.
On the person card for Allan Deyoung, select Licenses and apps.
Select the checkbox next to Windows 365 Enterprise 2vCPU/8GB/128GB to assign that license to Allan.
Note: The steps are also possible to perform from the Azure Portal or automatically via Azure AD group assignment.
Click the Save changes button to finalize the license assignment.
Once the changes have been saved, click the X in the upper right to close the person card for Allan Deyoung.
You have now successfully assigned a Windows 365 - Cloud PC license to Allan and are ready to provision his Cloud PC.
Cloud PCs are created and assigned to users based on provisioning policies defined in Microsoft Endpoint Manager. In this exercise – you will be the using Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center to create and assign a Cloud PC provisioning policy. Provisioning policies allow you to define key parameters including which network will host the Cloud PC and whether it will be joined to the enterprise AD and synced to Azure AD (Hybrid Azure AD join) or joined directly to Azure AD (Azure AD join).
While hybrid Azure AD join may be preferred for certain scenarios, Azure AD join enables you to transition towards a cloud-first model with Windows. If you're planning to modernize your device management and reduce device-related IT costs, Azure AD join provides a great foundation towards achieving those goals. In this example, you’ll be taking advantage of the new Azure AD join capability when defining Contoso’s provisioning policy.
Once a provisioning policy is assigned to a user or group – the Windows 365 service will check for appropriate licensing for those users and then provision and configure Cloud PCs accordingly.
Note: Before you start, make sure that the account you are using has at the Intune Service Admin role assigned. After provisioning you can set the rights back to standard MEM RBAC.
Starting in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center, select Devices in the left navigation.
On the Devices | Overview panel, select Windows 365 in the left navigation.
On the Devices | Windows 365 page, select the Provisioning policies tab.
On the Provisioning policies tab, click the Create policy button
On the Create a provisioning policy page, in the Name field, type West US Cloud PC provisioning.
In the description field, type Provisioning policy for Cloud PCs assigned to employees in US West.
Contoso will be taking advantage of the option to join Cloud PCs directly to Azure AD and host those Cloud PCs on Microsoft’s network. This is a great way to enable the benefits of Cloud PCs for your organization without the need to create and manage a connection to on-premises infrastructure.
Verify that the Join type is set to Azure AD join and the Network is set to Microsoft hosted network.
If you select the combination of Azure AD Join and Microsoft Hosted network, you will need to select a region. To ensure the best experience for Contoso’s users, you will be creating a provisioning policy for each of the regions in which Contoso has branch offices and then assigning those policies to the users in those regions. For this exercise, you will be starting with the US West.
Click to expand the Region menu and then Select (US) West US 2.
Click the Next button at the bottom of the Create a provisioning policy page.
Click to expand the Select an image type menu.
When creating a provisioning policy you have the option of using a custom device image or selecting from the built-in gallery of images. Some customers prefer to use their own pre-build custom images, commonly known as golden images. The customer is free to pick whatever solution fits best for their needs.
You will be using a standard Windows 11 based image from the gallery, so select Gallery image.
Click select under Gallery image.
On the Select an image pane, select Windows 11 Enterprise + Microsoft 365 Apps
Click the Select button to choose an image.
Now that you’ve selected a device image, click the Next button at the bottom of the Create a provisioning policy page.
Windows 365 allows you to specify the default language and region settings for Cloud PCs created with this policy. Since this policy is for US West employees, we will leave it set to English and click the Next button.
On the assignments page, click the Add groups button.
On the select groups to include pane, select Seattle Area Employees.
Click the select button at the bottom of the pane.
Note: Every user in the group with a Cloud PC license assigned will receive a Cloud PC provisioned based on the image and network/directory configuration. In this demo, Allan Deyoung is a member of the Seattle Area Employees users group.
Verify that the Seattle Area Employees group is listed under Groups on the Assignments tab and then click the Next button.
Review your settings and then click the Create button. After clicking Create, the new Cloud PCs will start to provision directly for the AAD group members that you assigned to the provisioning policy
Once you get confirmation that the provisioning policy has been created, select the All Cloud PCs tab.
On the All Cloud PCs tab, you can see that Allan Deyoung’s Cloud PC is already being provisioned (recall that we already assigned a Windows 365 Enterprise license to Allan in exercise 1).
In about 15 minutes, the new Cloud PC will be ready to use!
The new tenant admin alerts functionality in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center will proactively notify you of important issues impacting your users, such as Azure connection issues or Cloud PC provisioning problems. These alerts are based off a series of tests that are run at pre-defined intervals – allowing for timely detection of issues. When one or more of these tests fails and an alert is raised, and admin is given additional context to assist them in taking corrective action.
In this exercise we’ll pick up where we left off in Exercise 2 – (In the Microsoft Endpoint Manage admin center after Allan’s Cloud PC has been successfully provisioned) and look at how to view and act on Windows 365 alerts.
In the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center, click on Tenant administration in the left hand navigation.
In the Tenant admin | Tenant status page, click Alerts (preview).
In the Tenant admin | Alerts (preview) page, you can see that there are several issues currently impacting your environment. Click on Azure network connection failure to investigate that critical alert.
On the Azure network connection failure panel, click on Failed Azure network connection checks to view additional context on failed test(s).
Click on AlertTest in the list of failed Azure network connection checks.
On the overview page, you can see that there were issues detected resolving the Active Directory domain in DNS and joining that domain. It makes sense to investigate the DNS issue first, as that is likely preventing joining the domain.
Click on DNS can resolve Active Directory domain for more context on that error.
Details are provided for failed tests – enabling you to review possible/probable causes and navigate to additional information on resolution.
In this case – once you verify the domain exists you’ll want to check the network config to ensure we’re using an appropriate DNS server.
With the power of Endpoint Analytics in Microsoft Endpoint Manager, you receive deep insight into Cloud PC connectivity health and Cloud PC performance that enabled you to proactively optimize the user experience and track your progress.
Starting in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center click on Reports in the left navigation.
On the Reports page, under Analytics in the left navigation, click on Endpoint analytics.
On the Endpoint analytics page, you can see an overall score for the health of your environment, aggregating 4 score categories: Startup performance, application reliability, resource performance, and work from anywhere. In addition, you are provided with insights and recommendations on the right – helping guide you toward the most impactful places you can take action to improve your users’ experience.
From this page, detailed reports allow you to drill deeper into specific areas. We’ll start by looking at connection health. On the Endpoint analytics | Overview page, click on Remoting connection.
4. On the Endpoint analytics | Remoting connection page, you again see your key health metrics at a glance as well as insights and recommendations on how to improve those metrics. In this case, you can see that a number of users are experiencing problematic round-trip times (RTT) and sign-in experiences.
To understand more, let’s start by clicking on Sign-in time in the list of metrics to view more detail on that area.
Review the data on Sign-in time phases and then click the X to close the panel.
Click the Model performance tab to review the breakdown by Cloud PC model.
The Model performance view is a good way to identify issues pertaining to a particular model. In this case you can see that some models look to have higher RTT than others. We are going to look for specific users/Cloud PCs with issues however, so let’s click the Device performance tab to review that breakdown.
The Device performance tab enables you to quickly sort by RTT and Sign-in time to identify Cloud PCs having issues and drill down to troubleshoot and take action. In this case, we’ll start with the Cloud PC with the highest RTT – click on CPC-adelev in the list of devices.
On the Remoting connection tab for CPC-adelev we can see that RTT has increased dramatically for the last 3 days. We won’t be fully troubleshooting this Cloud PC in this exercise, but this context is a useful starting point.
Above CPC-Adelev, click on Endpoint analytics in the Home > Reports > Endpoint Analytics > Remoting Connection breadcrumb to return to the overview page.
Click on Resource performance in the left navigation.
The overall resource performance score looks pretty good, though there are some devices with high CPU and RAM spike times. We’ll take advantage of the insights and recommendations to identify and address some of the CPU spike issues.
Click on ‘You have 135 devices with above average spike time % on CPU’ under Insights and recommendations.
The Resource performance page shows a breakdown of key performance metrics for individual Cloud PCs in your organization.
Click on CPC-nolanp in this list of devices to take a deeper look at that device.
he Resource performance score for this Cloud PC is only 34, so we’ll resize it to improve performance. Click on Resize (right under the Resource performance tab) to start that process.
On the details page for CPC-nolanp, click the Resize button in the toolbar.
Nolan is currently using a 4vCPU Cloud PC. We will be upgrading to 8vCPU, so select the radio button next to 8vCPU on the Resize panel.
Click the Resize button at the bottom of the resize panel.
Review the additional context of resizing a Cloud PC, then click the Resize button to finalize the action. You have now completed this exercise – reviewing how to access and take proactive action based detailed reports on device health in MEM endpoint analytics.
To simplify access to your Cloud PC – Microsoft has created the Information Worker Portal. The portal provides a single experience to view, manage and access all of your Cloud PCs. The portal allows end-users to choose between accessing their Cloud PC via the browser or via the Remote Desktop (MSRDC) client. This interactive demo walks you through the end user experience for both the browser and Remote Desktop based experience.
You can use the interactive experience by following the prompts to click and fill out highlighted links and form fields, or you can simply sit back and watch. To get started, choose a topic at left.
Only Microsoft can bring together the PC and the cloud with a consistent and integrated Windows experience. That’s Windows 365 – hybrid Windows for a hybrid world.
The Windows 365 IW portal provides a simple experience for launching any of your Cloud PCs in the browser. Accessing your Cloud PC is possible from modern browsers including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Safari, or Mozilla Firefox (v55.0 and later). In this exercise, you will be using Microsoft Edge.
In Microsoft Edge, navigate to https://windows365.microsoft.com.
Enter the username and password for alland@contoso.com and click the Sign in button.
Review the welcome text and then click the Next button.
Read the 'What is a Cloud PC?' section and then click the Next button.
Review the description of what you can do with a Cloud PC and then click the Next button.
Select Get started to proceed to the Windows 365 Information Worker portal.
While we finish setting up your Cloud PC, you can quickly review additional context. After you have read it, click Next on the 'Your cloud PC is ready for you' bubble.
Review the information on how to connect to your Cloud PC from your browser and then click the Next button.
Note how to access the Settings menu to manage the Cloud PC, then click Got it.
Now that Allan’s cloud PC is ready, click on the Settings gear to explore the available options. Note that you can restart, reset, restore, rename and troubleshoot your Cloud PC from this point.
End users can perform maintainence on Cloud PCs easily via the Windows 365 web portal. Let's look at the actions that are supported:
- Restart - Restarts the Cloud PC
- Reset - Reset does the following:
- Reinstalls Windows
- Removes your personal files (OneDrive data remains).
- Removes any changes you made to settings.
- Removes your apps.
- Restore – Using Windows 365 Point-in-time restore, you can restore your Cloud PC to the exact state it was in at a previous point in time.
- Rename - Changes the name of the Cloud PC shown to the user on windows365.microsoft.com.
- Troubleshoot – Makes it easy to review your Cloud PCs connectivity and get steps for resolving any issues discovered.
- System information – Provides basic information about the Cloud PC, user and license assigned.
If the user has the permission to restore their Cloud PC (as Allan does in our example), they will see the restore option in the settings menu. To restore Allan’s Cloud PC to the exact state it was in at an earlier point in time using the new point-in-time restore feature click on Restore (preview) in the Settings menu.
Cloud PCs have the same risks as all Windows PCs when performing a full disk restore. Review the information explaining the potential impact of point-in-time restore and then select ‘Yes, I want to restore this Cloud PC.
Click to expand the ‘Select a restore point’ menu.
Select the restore point from 04/14/2022 at 19:05.
Click the Restore button.
Once Allan’s Cloud PC has been restored, Click Open in browser to launch the Cloud PC.
When connecting to a Cloud PC using the browser – the user has the option to select whether to allow their Cloud PC to access local printers, the microphone and the clipboard. We’ll leave all of those defaults on and click the Connect button.
Enter the password for alland@contoso.com.
And then click the Sign in button.
Once the credentials are verified, you will be logged on to Allan’s Cloud PC – clientless via the browser!
You are now in a Cloud PC session running in the browser. The background wallpaper and icons are preloaded from your physical desktop PC. This is the result of using OneDrive Known Folder Move, Enterprise State Roaming and Edge sync settings which are enabled by default.
You can also run your session in full-screen mode in your browser. Click the full screen icon in the upper right of the Cloud PC to switch to full screen mode.
All of your apps and configuration policies are automatically assigned via Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Intune. There is no need to install any applications beforehand, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, and your other key applications are available out-of-the-box!
Windows 365 Cloud PCs also support the Windows Remote Desktop Client. You can download the client from the Windows 365 Information Worker Portal, or by navigating to https://aka.ms/CPCClient.
Starting in the Windows 365 IW Portal in Microsoft Edge, click on Download Remote Desktop under Quick actions.
On the Microsoft Remote Desktop apps page, click the button to download the 64-bit version of Microsoft Remote Desktop client for Windows.
After the client download has completed, click the Next button on the Set up Remote Desktop informational panel.
Click on the link to get a subscription URL – this will be used when configuring the RDP client to connect to your Cloud PC.
On the Subscribe with a URL panel, click the Copy button to copy the URL to your clipboard.
Once the URL has been copied, click the X to close the panel.
Review the instructions on how to proceed with setup, then click on Open file under downloads in Microsoft Edge to start the installation.
On the Welcome to the Remote Desktop Setup Wizard page, click the Next button.
Select the checkbox to accept the license agreement and then click the Next button.
Leave the scope set to ‘Install just for you’ and click the Install button.
Once installation has completed, click the Finish button.
You will be subscribing using the URL you copied earlier. Click the Subscribe with URL button.
On the Subscribe to a Workspace panel, paste the URL into the Email or Workspace URL field, and then click the Next button.
Type alland@contoso.com as your username and click the Next button.
Enter your password and click Sign in.
After configuration is completed, you will see your Cloud PC. Click the Cloud PC icon to launch the Cloud PC.
Enter the password and select Remember me – then click OK to sign in
You are now in a Cloud PC session running in the Remote Desktop client. The background wallpaper and icons are preloaded from your physical desktop PC. Furthermore, all of your apps and configuration policies are automatically assigned via Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Intune. There is no need to install any applications beforehand, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, and your other key applications are available out-of-the-box!
Windows 365, the world’s first Cloud PC, securely streams your desktop, apps, settings and content from the Microsoft cloud to all of your devices to provide a personalized Windows experience anywhere. Windows 365 extends end-user computing from the client to the cloud for businesses of all sizes, simplifying the experience with a complete service to securely buy, manage, and scale, all in one place.
Windows 365 comes in two versions: Enterprise Edition and Business Edition.
Business Edition is for any business, with no technology prerequisites, that requires fewer than 300 Cloud PCs. Simply utilize the Windows 365 cloud portal to purchase, deploy and manage Cloud PCs any time.
Enterprise Edition leverages Microsoft Endpoint Manager to enable customers to provision and manage Cloud PCs using the same skills they use to deploy physical PCs - fully integrated with Active Directory and built on Azure.
This interactive demo walks you through the Business Edition experience, using Microsoft 365 Admin Center to purchase a Windows 365 Business license and the Windows 365 admin center to assign and deploy Cloud PCs to end users. You can use the interactive experience by following the prompts to click and fill out highlighted links and form fields, or you can simply sit back and watch.
To get started, choose a topic at left.
Only Microsoft can bring together the PC and the cloud with a consistent and integrated Windows experience. That’s Windows 365 – hybrid Windows for a hybrid world.
In this module, we’ll demonstrate how to purchase Windows 365 Cloud PC licenses from within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Here, you’ll navigate to admin.microsoft.com to purchase your Windows 365 Business licenses - just like you normally do for other licenses such as Office 365 or Microsoft 365 Business Premium – in just a few simple steps.
You can learn more about the pricing and sizing of the various Cloud PC SKUs available for purchase here on the Microsoft site for Windows 365 plans and pricing.
Starting in the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Billing in the left navigation.
Under Billing in the left navigation, select Purchase services.
On the Purchase services page under View by Category, select Windows 365.
Under the Windows 365 Business description, click on Details.
On the Windows 365 Business page, click to expand the Select a plan menu.
There are a variety of plans available, enabling you to purchase the license and size of Cloud PC that fits your use case best. We will be selecting the 2vCPU/8GB/128GB plan, which includes Microsoft Teams, Outlook and the Office apps, making it suitable for Information Worker work from home scenarios. For more information on available options, see Windows 365 Business sizing options.
In this example, you will be purchasing a license for the 2vCPU/8GB/128GB plan plan, so select that option in the dropdown menu.
Under Subtotal before applicable taxes, click the Buy button.
Review the details on the Checkout page and then click the Place order button.
You have successfully purchased a license for Windows 365 Business and are now ready to assign that license to a user in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Click anywhere on the screen to continue.
Once you’ve purchased one or more Windows 365 Business Edition licenses, you’ll need to assign them to users. Assigning a license to a user in the Windows 365 admin center acts to immediately provision a Cloud PC to that user, with no additional IT admin actions required. In this module, we’ll walk you through the steps and show you just how simple it is! If you’re ready, let’s get started.
Starting in Microsoft Edge, type https://windows365.microsoft.com in the address bar to navigate to the Windows 365 admin center.
Sign in using your administrator credentials: For the username, type admin@contoso.com and hit enter or click Next.
For the password, type “password” and hit enter or click Sign in.
Click Yes to stay signed in on this computer.
In the Windows 365 admin center, you will see a list of active users in your organization. We will start by assigning a license to Adele Vance.
Select Adele Vance in the list of users
On the person card for Adele Vance, select the Licenses and apps tab
Under Licenses, select the checkbox next to Windows 365 Business 2 vCPU 8GB 128GB
After selecting the Windows 365 Business license, click on Save changes.
After your changes have been saved, click the X in the upper right of the person card to close it.
Congratulations. You have successfully assigned a Windows 365 Business license to Adele Vance, now it’s time to try the streamlined experience for assigning a license and provisioning a Cloud PC during new user provisioning.
In the Windows 365 admin center, click the Add a user button.
Under Buy a license to add a user account, click on Edit products.
Verify that Microsoft 365 Business Premium is selected, and then click the checkbox next to Windows 365 Business 2vCPU, 8GB, 128GB to assign that license to our new user as well.
Click the Update button at the bottom of the pane.
In the First name field, type Allan and hit Enter.
In the Last name field, type Deyoung and hit Enter.
In the Username for signin field, type alland and hit Enter.
Click the Add a user button.
Once, Allan’s account has been created, click the X in the upper right to close the pane.
Allan now appears in the active user list and you can see that a Windows 365 Business license has already been assigned – meaning his Cloud PC is already being provisioned. You are now ready to preview Adele and Allan's experience when they first launch their Cloud PC.
Now that the user has been assigned a Windows 365 license, the user simply navigates to https://windows365.microsoft.com and logs in. Once the user logs in, any Cloud PCs that have been assigned to the user will be available to select and launch. In this module, we’ll demonstrate the user experience the first time the user logs on after they are assigned a license.
To begin, in Microsoft Edge, navigate to https://windows365.microsoft.com.
Sign in using your username and password. Start by typing adelev@contoso.com
Then click the Next button.
Type Adele's password and then click the Sign in button.
Click the Yes button to stay signed in.
You've signed in and the Cloud PC is loading!
Review the welcome text and then click the Next button.
Read the 'What is a Cloud PC?' section and then click the Next button.
Review the description of what you can do with a Cloud PC and then click the Next button.
Select Get started to proceed to the Windows 365 Information Worker portal.
While we finish setting up your cloud PC, you can quickly review additional content. After you have read it, click Next on the 'Your cloud PC is ready for you' bubble.
Review the information on how to connect to your Cloud PC from your browser and then click the Next button.
Note how to access the Settings menu to manage your Cloud PC, then click Got it.
Now that your cloud PC is ready, click on the Settings gear to explore the available options.
End users can perform maintenance on cloud PCs easily via the Windows 365 web portal. Let's look at the actions that are supported:
- Restart - Restarts the Cloud PC
- Reset - Reset does the following:
- Reinstalls Windows
- Removes your personal files (OneDrive data remains).
- Removes any changes you made to settings.
- Removes your apps.
- Restore – Using Windows 365 Point-in-time restore, you can restore your Cloud PC to the exact state it was in at a previous point in time.
- Rename - Changes the name of the Cloud PC shown to the user on windows365.microsoft.com.
- Troubleshoot – Makes it easy to review your Cloud PCs connectivity and get steps for resolving any issues discovered.
- System information – Provides basic information about the Cloud PC, user and license assigned.
Note: Before resetting your Cloud PC, make sure to back up any important files you need to keep to a cloud storage service or external storage. Resetting your Cloud PC will delete these files
Click on Open in browser to launch the Cloud PC in Microsoft Edge. Recall that Adele’s Cloud PC is 2vCPU/8GBRAM - so will have Microsoft Teams, Office, Outlook and other apps installed. To review more detailed information on Cloud PC offerings, consult the Microsoft document on Windows 365 Business sizing options.
We will keep the default settings, allowing the Cloud PC to access the printer, microphone and clipboard on our local machine. Leave all of those options selected and click the Connect button.
Enter Adele’s password and then click the Sign in button.
You've successfully launched and logged in to Adele’s Cloud PC - which is familiar, easy to use, and always available so she can work and create fluidly across devices.
In addition to providing a simple experience for provisioning Cloud PCs for new and existing users, the Windows 365 admin center makes it easy to manage Cloud PCs on behalf of users in your organization.
Starting in the Windows 365 admin portal (windows365.microsoft.com) logged in as admin@contoso.com, select Adele Vance in the list of active users.
On Adele’s person card, select the Devices tab.
As an administrator, you have a number of actions available to you to manage Adele’s Cloud PC:
- Restart - Restarts the Cloud PC.
- Reset - Reset does the following:
- Reinstalls Windows
- Removes all personal files (OneDrive data remains).
- Removes any changes you made to settings.
- Removes any apps installed by the user.
- Rename - Changes the name of the Cloud PC shown to the user on windows365.microsoft.com.
- Change account type – Allows admin to specify whether the user should be a standard user or local administrator on the Cloud PC. In this case, we’ll leave Adele as a standard user.
In addition to Cloud PC management, the Windows 365 admin center gives you quick access to other key actions like reset password – making it easier to support your Cloud PC users with a single admin experience.
In addition to Cloud PC management, the Windows 365 admin center gives you quick access to other key actions like reset password – making it easier to support your Cloud PC users with a single admin experience.