Windows 10’s AutoPilot feature could see the OS take off with businesses

Microsoft has been spilling the beans on further goodies which will arrive for businesses in the Fall Creators Update for Windows 10, including a juicy new feature which will make it a snap to set up a business PC.

Of course, deploying a PC (or indeed multiple PCs) to staff can be a headache of a task, so Microsoft is gunning to seriously simplify the whole process with what’s called Windows AutoPilot.

As the name suggests, this takes all the hassle out of setting up a new Windows 10 PC, automatically doing pretty much everything for you. A new Windows AutoPilot Deployment Program will allow PC vendors to link a device to an organisation, and enable a new PC to immediately be made ready, and joined to Azure Active Directory, enrolled in Intune and so forth.

Specific settings can be automatically applied, appropriate business apps installed, Office 365 set up, and everything will theoretically be ready to go with a minimum of fuss.

AutoPilot should mean that a staff member can set up their own new PC without any help from the IT department; a pretty bold claim indeed.

This new feature could certainly help accelerate Windows 10’s progress in the business world, because anything that makes organising the deployment of a new OS easier is obviously going to be very welcome.

Microsoft says that the Surface team is already working with partners to get the scheme ready to roll, and Windows AutoPilot should be available to business customers ‘later in the year’ (obviously after the Fall Creators Update emerges).

The big autumn update will also incorporate Windows AutoPilot Reset, a quick and simple way to reset a machine to the last good working state without messing up device management and Azure Active Directory settings.

MDM magic

Speaking of mobile device management (MDM), new capabilities will be coming in this area, including the ability to configure and deploy Windows Defender Application Guard, as well as baseline security settings, making it easy to impose recommended security settings on managed devices across a business.

It will also be possible to configure Windows Firewall rules.

Furthermore, Microsoft also said that Windows Analytics will be getting a new feature by the name of Device Health. The idea here is to monitor system stability and health, pick out potential issues that the user may not have even noticed yet, and remedy them, thus avoiding future problems and downtime.

Along with AutoPilot, this should be a major boon for businesses who have made the leap to Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system.