The business environment today is constantly evolving and organizations that fail to adapt can quickly find themselves falling behind. And in this era of rapid technology changes, it can sometimes prove impossible to catch up. If we look back at just the last five years, for instance, we have witnessed significant change in hybrid work acceptance. Services such as Windows 365 have given organizations a secure, reliable platform that enables employees to remain productive anywhere.

With this kind of flexibility as well as the capability to access Cloud PCs from any device, business productivity can soar. By introducing Windows 365 Link, the advantages will be even greater.

Onboarding Windows 365 Link devices

Having gone over the process for setting up Windows 365 Link in a previous post, today we’ll be looking at how you can onboard Windows 365 Link devices to your organization’s environment. As you get started with this process, it’s important to remember that Windows 365 Link devices have been designed to be shared.

After unboxing and turning on your Link device, the first time it boots it will load the Out of Box Experience to guide you through a straightforward process. This process joins the device to Entra ID and enrolls into Intune management. With this complete, the device will display a sign-in screen from where any user can authenticate and connect to their own Cloud PC.

Any standard user can onboard Windows 365 Link devices using the OOBE process as long as they have the requisite permissions. However, organizations can also decide to have admins onboard Windows 365 Link devices and complete the onboarding before delivering the devices to users. Another option would be to split the tasks with admins onboarding some devices and users onboarding others. To help you decide, you can consider the following information:

Considerations	Admin-driven Onboarding	User-driven onboarding
Device will be availed to multiple, different users.	Yes.
Device will be availed to one specific user.		Yes.
Users will not be allowed to join or register devices.	Yes.
Users will get their devices shipped directly to them.		Yes.

Admin-driven Onboarding

An account with the designation of a Device Enrollment Manager (DEM) can onboard devices shared by multiple users. Although this account doesn’t require admin privileges in the tenant, it can still enroll up to 1000 devices in Intune. DEMs remain subject to the limit on the number of devices allowed to join to Entra ID. With this in mind, you may want to consider increasing the maximum number of devices per user to a value you expect a DEM to enroll.

By using this DEM account to onboard Link devices, this will:

• Enroll the Windows 365 Link devices in a shared device mode.
• Bypass any Intune enrollment restrictions for platforms as well as any device limits that may be in place.
• Eliminate the need for any changes to allow personal Windows devices.
• Not require designating a primary user of the device. And with no primary user of the device, Windows 365 Link will not appear in a user’s list of devices in Intune, Entra, Company Portal, or other places.

Setting up a DEM account to onboard Your Link devices.

This requires you to follow the steps below:

• Create the account you’ll be using for Windows 365 Link device onboarding.
• Assign the required licensing (Microsoft Entra Premium, Intune, Windows, etc ).
• Verify that the user has the requisite permissions to join devices to Microsoft Entra ID.
• The user will then need to be added to the list of Device Enrollment Managers.
• Lastly, you need to provision a Cloud PC for this DEM account so that you can validate connectivity.

Onboarding Your Windows Link devices using the DEM account.

This requires you to follow the steps below:

• Turn on the Windows 365 Link device.
• Sign in with the DEM account. You can only join the device to Microsoft Entra and enroll in Intune by completing all the authentication steps.
• After you’ve connected to the Cloud PC, you’ll need to then disconnect and restart Windows 365 so that any available updates can properly install.
• Shut down Windows 365 Link.
• Once the above steps have are complete, the Windows 365 Link device is now ready for use by anyone in the organization with a Cloud PC.

User-driven Onboarding

Organizations don’t need to have IT admins onboard each Windows Link and can instead have users complete the OOBE to join them to Microsoft Entra and enroll them in Intune. By using this method:

• A user will need to be designated as the primary user of the device.
• The Windows 365 Link will subsequently appear in their list of devices.
• All users within the organization can then use the device to access their own Cloud PCs.

THINGS TO VERIFY

• All users should have the necessary licenses.
• All users need to have permissions to join devices to Microsoft Entra IP.
• Users must not exceed the maximum number of devices that can be joined.
• Users must not be blocked from Intune enrollment by any restrictions or device limits.
• Each user should have a Cloud PC provisioned and consented to single sign-on.

Steps for Onboarding Windows 365 Link Link Devices

• Provide users with the Windows 365 Link devices.
• Turn the device on.
• Sign in with the user’s account. You can only join the device to Microsoft Entra and enroll in Intune by completing all the authentication steps.
• After you’ve connected to the Cloud PC, you’ll then disconnect and restart Windows 365 so that any available updates can install properly.
• Shut down Windows 365 Link.
• Once the above steps have been successfully completed, the Windows 365 Link device is now ready for use by anyone in the organization with a Cloud PC.

Wrap up

Windows 365 Link is designed to make accessing Cloud PCs a faster and more secure process. It does this by addressing latency issues and complicated sign in processes to name but two problems. Windows 365 is all about being easy to use so it’s not surprising that onboarding Link devices to your organization’s environment is a relatively straightforward process. Whether you give the task to admins or the users do it themselves, getting your Windows Link devices up and running should be quick and hassle-free.