Above: New cybersecurity warnings are coming for Windows 11.

Over the past two years, the business has changed dramatically. Most employees want flexible, secure, and remote options to work. With that in mind, today Microsoft is sharing new, inclusive, and intelligent experiences in management, security, productivity, and collaboration for Windows 11 and Microsoft 365 to empower organizations to embrace whatever comes next.

Panos Panay

“Windows 11 is the operating system for hybrid work. It’s built on a compatible and familiar foundation that’s easy for IT to manage. It’s designed to meet the challenges of an ever-evolving cyber landscape and equipped with experiences that help employees do their best work,” mentioned Panos Panay, EVP, Chief Product Officer at Microsoft.

“Since launching Windows 11, we’ve seen strong demand and the highest quality and product satisfaction scores of any version of Windows we’ve ever shipped. This is just the beginning, our team is committed to innovating how Windows can streamline experiences whether you’re returning to the office, working from home or never left the workplace as a frontline employee.”

“With Windows 365, businesses can stream the entire Windows experiences from the Microsoft cloud to any device, representing an important step in our journey to bring Windows to the cloud,” Panay added.

Zero Trust chip-to-cloud security in Windows tuned for hybrid work

“Cybersecurity issues and risks” top the list of concerns for business decision makers in the year ahead, shows new data from Microsoft‘s 2022 Work Trend Index. With built-in chip to cloud protection, Windows 11 is here to help organizations meet the new security challenges of the hybrid workplace, now and in the future. Windows 11 is introducing two powerful new features that strike against the most common cyberattack techniques: phishing and targeted malware.

• New in Windows 11 is enhanced phishing detection and protection built into Windows with Microsoft Defender SmartScreen. This new feature will help protect users from phishing attacks by identifying and alerting users when they are entering their Microsoft credentials into a malicious application or hacked website.
• Smart App Control uses code signing alongside Microsoft’s powerful artificial intelligence models to ensure that only trusted applications are run, blocking one of the largest attack vectors on Windows by-default. We’re also looking ahead to bring the power of the cloud to hardware with the flexible, updatable Microsoft Pluton security processor

Microsoft is focused on making jobs easier and protecting the productivity of people as well as their organizations from the most common to the most sophisticated attacks. To do that, Config Lock, already in Windows 11, monitors registry keys through MDM policies to help ensure devices in your ecosystem comply with industrial and company security baselines.

If Config Lock detects a change in registry keys, it will automatically revert the impacted system to the IT-desired state in seconds.

Empowering employees through productivity & collaboration

As people are working in more places, across devices, requiring even greater flexibility, Microsoft wants to build experiences into Windows that are as inclusive, connected, and intelligent as possible. New features like: Focus, system wide Live Captions, and Voice Access will empower everyone, including people with disabilities, to do more. Each of these experiences was created in partnership with people with disabilities and extended to many other Windows users.

Additionally, Microsoft wants to help Windows users be more efficient and more productive in every experience. The redesigned, cloud-powered File Explorer makes it easier to find what users are looking for, allowing them to see all files in one centralized place. People can also pin files and create tabs in File Explorer, bringing what used to take six clicks to get to an important file to one.

To further improve the meeting and collaboration experience, Microsoft is also introducing: new intelligent meeting features for Windows 11 powered by AI, like Voice clarity, Automatic framing, Portrait background blur, and Eye contact.

Empowering IT with streamlined Windows management

Considering that simplicity and ease of management is more important than ever as organizations and IT adapt to remote and hybrid work environments. Microsoft presents a new intelligent managed service: Windows Autopatch, that can help reduce the load on IT by automating updates for Windows, Microsoft Edge, and Office, ensuring they’re always up to date. Autopatch will be available to customers at no additional cost, as part of the Windows Enterprise E3 subscription.

With Windows 365, Microsoft is extending the Windows experience to the cloud to help meet the changing workforce needs: the Windows 365 Enterprise edition gives organizations the flexibility to provide an incredible Windows experience on a corporate device or personal device, all managed in Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Through Endpoint Manager IT can manage Windows 365 Cloud PCs alongside their physical PCs. Microsoft is also announcing that the top customer-requested feature — Azure AD Join support for Cloud PCs — is coming to general availability in May 2022.

Also coming to Windows 11 is an application management for Microsoft Edge to provide more flexibility in how and where employees work. Additionally, Microsoft is sharing their plans for premium endpoint management that will bring together mission critical endpoint and security management tools into a single, cloud powered solution. Other release that will address a major need for hybrid work is the remote help: the first of Microsoft premium endpoint management add-on to Endpoint Manager Remote that safely helps employees with their day-to-day.

“Over time we will launch a series of capabilities in Endpoint Manager designed to improve end user experiences, increase endpoint security, and reduce TCO. These new solutions will help to protect endpoints in the cloud, on premises and across device platforms, and will be foundational for organizations striving to adopt a Zero Trust security model”, said Panos Panay, EVP, Chief Product Officer.

Removing boundaries between the PC and the cloud

Microsoft will soon deliver new integrations that bring the power of Windows 11 and Windows 365 together. Integrations include Windows 365 Switch for seamless movement between your Cloud PC and Local PC with a single click, Windows 365 Boot to be able to boot straight to your Windows 365 Cloud PC in just one step.

Windows is built for commercial customers and hybrid work

Over the last two years, the organizations that thrived were those that embraced digital transformation. Microsoft cannot always predict what’s coming, but can ensure that Windows stays at the forefront of technology and experiences.

Windows 11 and Windows 365, Microsoft is ready to take everyone into the next era of hybrid work and support the future of your business, offering organizations the most secure, manageable, and productive Windows experience on the planet.