Microsoft has revealed quite a few details about its upcoming Windows 10 operating system and in the latest update on its blog, Redmond has also provided us with information on what Enterprise customers should expect when the operating system hit store shelves in middle of 2015.
Cloud-oriented Azure Active Directory (AD)
In an update last Friday, Microsoft revealed that it is bringing cloud-oriented Azure Active Directory (AD) support on Windows 10 devices on top of the traditionally used on-premises or local AD setups.
Microsoft said that users will be able to log-on to their Windows 10 devices using Azure AD accounts and beyond that they will also be able to mix local AD and Azure AD.
Redmond revealed that both these setups will work in tandem. To understand this better, consider a scenario where a user access his / her computer using the local AD credentials. Windows 10 will identify this and will automatically log the user into cloud-based services like Office 365 without the user requiring to enter his / her Azure AD credentials thereby doing away with the need of remembering multiple user IDs and passwords.
Mobile Device Management
Taking the mobile device management (MDM) features that it introduced in Windows 8.1 further, Microsoft said that MDM features on Windows 10 will be much more expansive and will include options for corporate-owned devices.
This means that companies that provide its staffers with a single device can configure the device to support multiple users with complete control over Windows Store, VPN, device-wipe capabilities, and the configuration of Enterprise Data Protection policies.
In-place upgrades
To make the lives of IT admins a lot simple and learning from Windows XP to Windows 7 upgrade headaches, Microsoft revealed that it has packed in-place upgrades support in Windows 10.
This means that IT admins won’t be required to wipe-off previous OS before installing Windows 10. They can simply hit the upgrade button to get corporate systems on Windows 10 and during the process all apps, data, and configurations from previous version of Windows will be preserved so users won’t have a chance of complaining about lost files.
Runtime configuration tools for ‘choose your own device’
With Windows 10 Microsoft intends to enable enterprises to provide its staffers with “choose your own device” scenarios. For this it has baked new runtime configuration tools enabling enterprises to configure devices for business use without performing re-imaging.
Enterprises will be able to save a lot of time by using these tools to provision Wi-Fi, VPN, e-mail profiles, security policies, installation of apps, language packs, and security updates.
