Getting more out of Windows 365 – Windows 365 Switch

Posted on July 6, 2024 by ncbrady

Introduction

On Friday 21st of June, myself and Paul presented on the topic of Windows 365 at the TunedIn: Leeds event, it was received with a lot of positivity and questions, so I thought I’d cover the content here for those of you that couldn’t make it to the event, it was awesome!

The agenda that we covered was all Windows 365 related and shown below:

What is Windows 365 Switch ?

Windows 365 Switch is a very nice feature in Windows 11 that allows users to quickly move between their local device and their Windows 365 Cloud PC using Task view. They can subsequently revert back to the local device again using Task View.

Enabling Windows 365 Switch

Below we can see my task view before enabling Windows 365 Switch. Notice how it shows Desktop 1 and that I could add more virtual desktops on the local computer by clicking on New desktop.

To enable Windows 365 Switch however, simply open the Windows app on your local PC, where you will see a list of your Windows 365 Cloud PCs.

Note: If you don’t have this app installed you can download it from Microsoft Store.

Select the Cloud PC that you want to switch to and click on the user actions menu (the three dots icon), click on Add to Task view from the available options, and highlighted in yellow below.

This will enable the Windows 365 Switch feature for that Cloud PC.

Note: You can only use Windows 365 Switch to switch to one of your Cloud PC’s currently, so it’s best to only add one. You can go ahead and add more but only the first will be the one you can use for this functionality.

Once added, you can click or hover over Task View and your local and Cloud PC desktops will be revealed. Simply click on your Cloud PC to connect seamlessly to it. The Cloud PC in question is shown as the desktop entitled Connect to Windows 365 Enterprise… in the screenshot below.

After connecting to your Cloud PC use it as normal, and when you want to switch back to the Local PC, simply hover or click on Task View again and this time select Local desktops.

Windows 365 Switch gotchas

The following are known gotchas that I’ve discovered after using Windows 365 Switch with my Cloud PC’s.

  • Add to task view only available via the Windows app
  • You can only add one Cloud PC to the Task view
  • You cannot enable it from within another Cloud PC
  • If you add more than one Cloud PC it won’t differentiate between which one you add

That’s it,

for more info about Windows 365 Switch see Microsofts blog on the subject here.

see you in the next one !

cheers

niall

 

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