Microsoft Introduces Windows Sandbox

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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In bleeding edge Windows builds, Microsoft introduced a way to quickly and easy spin up a Windows VM. "Windows Sandbox," as they call it, allows users to create "isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to your PC." Everything needed to run the sandbox is built into Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise builds 18305 or newer, and the feature can be enabled by checking the "Windows Sandbox" checkbox in the Windows Features menu. This feature actually leaked out of Microsoft's Feedback hub as "InPrivate Desktop" back in August, but Microsoft seems to have dropped that name.

Windows Sandbox builds on the technologies used within Windows Containers. Windows containers were designed to run in the cloud. We took that technology, added integration with Windows 10, and built features that make it more suitable to run on devices and laptops without requiring the full power of Windows Server.
 
Now if they could just sandbox the entire fucking OS and keep it safe, that would be getting somewhere.

Also, considering the masses run Windows 10 HOME this is useless for them and gets things nowhere fast.

Thanks Microsoft, for nothin'... at least you're consistent in that respect.o_O
 
I can't wait for Microsoft to make anything not installed through Windows Store required to be run in sandbox. The sandbox will take a performance hit, limit memory, or something else to make it advisable to use the Windows Store version. I bet this will be their next attempt at trying to make Windows a walled garden.
 
Nice feature, but late to the party. FreeBSD had this feature in 2000. And it doesn't require virtualization to be set in the system BIOS to work.
 
MS catters more to the consumer level so it's no suprise to see thise feature not implemented with Home Version since the majority of users using Home wouldn't have a clue as to what it does.
 
Prerequisites for using the feature
  • Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise build 18305 or later

Aww, man. No love for W10 Home users? I guess that makes sense, given Hyper-V isn't really available for Home users either. Hopefully someone will figure out a way to hack this in.

Guess I'll have to stick with Sandboxie a little bit longer.
 
I can't wait for Microsoft to make anything not installed through Windows Store required to be run in sandbox. The sandbox will take a performance hit, limit memory, or something else to make it advisable to use the Windows Store version. I bet this will be their next attempt at trying to make Windows a walled garden.


thankfully... businesses would put a stop to this
 
Kind of surprised at the reaction to this (not really, given MS-bashing is a tradition here at [H]). How many people here are running Win 10 Home? And if so...why?

Keys for Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro have been available here and elsewhere for obscenely cheap for a long time now.
 
This is M$ feature dump to kill the VM competition. Then they'll kill it. Pretty much like they did for Media Center and DVR'ing on a HTPC for most people.
 
I don't mind this one bit and as easy as it is to do will utilize this more often at home.
 
The more things arent integrated the better. Less holes to have to worry about with integrated software since this is the most used OS out there. Id rather have a barebones windows.
 
WIll it offer older WIn versions as well? That would be pretty neat. Make it so much easier when I get that itch to play game X.
 
Kind of surprised at the reaction to this (not really, given MS-bashing is a tradition here at [H]). How many people here are running Win 10 Home? And if so...why?

Keys for Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro have been available here and elsewhere for obscenely cheap for a long time now.

Yeah, but we're techies. My wife would have absolutely no clue as to what's different between Win 10 Pro and Win 10 Home. She basically does email, writes a few documents in what she calls Word (it's actually Libre Office Writer), a little Facebook and an occasional youtube video.
 
Yeah, but we're techies. My wife would have absolutely no clue as to what's different between Win 10 Pro and Win 10 Home. She basically does email, writes a few documents in what she calls Word (it's actually Libre Office Writer), a little Facebook and an occasional youtube video.

But non-"techies" probably aren't going to care about this feature, anyway. This seems to be designed more for professionals testing versioning of software, or trying to detonate suspected malware in a controlled environment.

Regardless, I don't see a reason to get mad about it existing.
 
Now if they could just sandbox the entire fucking OS and keep it safe, that would be getting somewhere.

Also, considering the masses run Windows 10 HOME this is useless for them and gets things nowhere fast.

Thanks Microsoft, for nothin'... at least you're consistent in that respect.o_O

People running Home have no idea what the hell a VM is anyway nor have a use for one.

This is designed for a professional environment for testing software.
 
where the fuck is the legit powershell?
shitty NOOBuntu-in-a-black-screen isn't a native *nix shell.

how bout you guys focus on that?

or is the babyoil+dandruff brigade too busy plugging the holes they fucking created with, what seems like, each fucking winBLOWs 10 update? (10 earned this. i LOVE 7)
 
Aww, man. No love for W10 Home users? I guess that makes sense, given Hyper-V isn't really available for Home users either. Hopefully someone will figure out a way to hack this in.

Guess I'll have to stick with Sandboxie a little bit longer.
Not a problem for Linux users who run Windows Home within a VM. Especially when you don't even need to enter in a key to use Windows nowadays. Putting Windows where it belongs, not as the host OS.
 
Aww, man. No love for W10 Home users? I guess that makes sense, given Hyper-V isn't really available for Home users either. Hopefully someone will figure out a way to hack this in.

Guess I'll have to stick with Sandboxie a little bit longer.

I suspect it's because it requires Hyper-V and I don't think Hyper-V is included in windows 10 home, which is unfortunate.
 
Be interesting to see how this operates. Is it just an in-built VM based on the current OS (e.g. like you quickly spun up a VM with Win10 installed - that was one of the rumors), a walled garden (kinda like Sandboxie, where the app is limited to the memory space you allow it to access), or a fork-like VM where the state of the OS is forked for this instance only (e.g. it can do normal OS stuff and read data, but any *changes* it makes are saved as a diff of the base OS).

*Edit* RTFA N00b.

Appears to just be a preconfigured virtual machine that quickly launches and destroys the changed state on closure. Kinda like setting up a VM of Win10, taking a snapshot, and then setting it to not persist past that snapshot state when powered down.
 
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Now if they could just sandbox the entire fucking OS and keep it safe, that would be getting somewhere.

Also, considering the masses run Windows 10 HOME this is useless for them and gets things nowhere fast.

Thanks Microsoft, for nothin'... at least you're consistent in that respect.o_O

Well IMHO folks on Win10 Home wouldn't really give a fuck or know what a sandbox is. Those that may know, likely won't bother anyway as it complicates usage. Sandboxing the entire OS will likely break compatibility with older software which is one of the key selling points of Windows.
 
Why don't they just call it 'Porn mode'. I can see why they dropped the 'inprivate desktop' lol.
 
...allows users to create "isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to your PC."

Provided you are immune to Specter/Meltdown type memory attacks.

Even with Meltdown and Spectre patched, researchers keep finding hardware vulnerabilities like this now.

VM's can no longer be trusted for security
 
It's just a gussied-up Windows container front end. Why would it be anything else?

Oh wait, Linux has had containers for years already? Who cares! We're gonna act like this is the new shit! And we made it! Yay!
 
Aww, man. No love for W10 Home users? I guess that makes sense, given Hyper-V isn't really available for Home users either. Hopefully someone will figure out a way to hack this in.

Guess I'll have to stick with Sandboxie a little bit longer.

The original build name was "Windows 10 Circumcised" but their bean counters got all up in arms about how it left out too many demographics so it's just "windows 10 Home".
 
Be cool if it has good support for external accessories like USB. That's usually one of my biggest issues when using a VM. They don't interact well with external plugs.
 
Now if they could just sandbox the entire fucking OS and keep it safe, that would be getting somewhere.

Also, considering the masses run Windows 10 HOME this is useless for them and gets things nowhere fast.

Thanks Microsoft, for nothin'... at least you're consistent in that respect.o_O
No reason to worry. They wouldn't use it if they had the feature....oh wait everyone else said the same thing...oh well I already typed this thing #send
 
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