fleet/articles/windows-mdm-setup.md

Windows MDM setup

Overview

Windows MDM features are not ready for production and are currently in development. These features are disabled by default.

Turning on Windows MDM features requires configuring Fleet with a certificate and key. This guide will walk you through how to upload these to Fleet and turn on Windows MDM.

Automatic enrollment allows Windows workstations to automatically enroll to Fleet when they are first set up. Automatic enrollment requires Microsoft Entra (formally Microsoft Azure). This guide will walk you through how to connect Entra to Fleet.

With Fleet connected to Entra, the end user will see Microsoft's default setup experience. You can further customize the initial setup with Windows Autopilot, which is similar to Apple's Automated Device Enrollment (DEP). Autopilot requires a Microsoft Intune license. This guide will also walk you through how to customize the intitial setup with Autopilot.

Requirements

To use Fleet's Windows MDM features you need to have:

• A deployed Fleet instance.
• A Fleet user with the admin role.

Turning on Windows MDM

Fleet uses a certificate and key pair to authenticate and manage interactions between Fleet and Windows host.

This section will show you how to:

1. Generate your certificate and key
2. Configure Fleet with your certificate and key
3. Turn on Windows MDM in Fleet

Step 1: generate your certificate and key

If you're already using Fleet's macOS MDM features, you already have a certificate and key. These are your SCEP certificate and SCEP private key you used when turning on macOS MDM.

If you're not using macOS MDM features, run the following command to download three files and send an email to you with an attached CSR file.

fleetctl generate mdm-apple --email <email> --org <org> 

Save the SCEP certificate and SCEP key. These are your certificate and key. You can ignore the downloaded APNs key and the APNs CSR that was sent to your email.

Step 2: configure Fleet with your certificate and key

1. In your Fleet server configuration, set the contents of the certificate and key in the following environment variables:

Note: Any environment variable that ends in _BYTES expects the file's actual content to be passed in, not a path to the file. If you want to pass in a file path, remove the _BYTES suffix from the environment variable.

• FLEET_MDM_WINDOWS_WSTEP_IDENTITY_CERT_BYTES
• FLEET_MDM_WINDOWS_WSTEP_IDENTITY_KEY_BYTES

2. Set the FLEET_DEV_MDM_ENABLED environment variable to 1.

3. Restart the Fleet server.

Step 3: Turn on Windows MDM in Fleet

Fleet UI:

1. Head to the Settings > Integrations > Mobile device management (MDM) enrollment page.

2. Next to Turn on Windows MDM select Turn on to navigate to the Turn on Windows MDM page.

3. Select Turn on.

fleetctl CLI:

1. Create fleet-config.yaml file or add to your existing config YAML file:

apiVersion: v1
kind: config
spec:
  mdm:
    windows_enabled_and_configured: true
  ...

2. Run the fleetctl apply -f fleet-config.yml command to turn on Windows MDM.

3. Confirm that Windows MDM is turned on by running fleetctl get config.

Microsoft Entra

Available in Fleet Premium or Ultimate

By connecting Fleet to Microsoft Entra, Windows workstations can automatically enroll to Fleet when they’re first unboxed and set up by your end user.

This section will guide you through how to:

1. Connect Fleet to Microsoft Entra

2. Test automatic enrollment

Step 1: connect Fleet to Microsoft Entra

For instructions on how to connect Fleet to Entra, in the Fleet UI, select the avatar on the right side of the top navigation and select Settings > Integrations > Automatic enrollment. Then, next to Windows automatic enrollment select Details.

Step 2: test automatic enrollment

Testing automatic enrollment requires creating a test user in Entra and a freshly wiped or new Windows workstation.

1. Sign in to Entra admin center.

2. In the left-side bar, select Users > All users.

3. Select + New user > Create new user, fill out the details for your test user, and select Review + Create > Create

4. In the left-side bar, select Users > all users again to refresh the page and confirm that your test user was created.

5. Open your Windows workstation and follow the setup steps. When you reach the How would you like to set up? screen, select Set up for an organization. If your workstations has Windows 11, select Set up for work or school.

6. Sign in with your test user's credentials and finish the setup steps.

7. When you reach the desktop on your Windows workstation, confirm that your workstation was automatically enrolled to Fleet by selecting the carrot (^) in your taskbar and then selecting the Fleet icon. This will navigate you to this workstation's My device page.

8. On the My device page, below My device confirm that your workstation has a Status of "Online."

Window Autopilot

Available in Fleet Premium or Ultimate

After you connect Fleet to Microsoft Entra, you can customize the Windows setup experience with Windows Autopilot.

This section will guide you through how to:

1. Buy a Microsoft Intune license. Microsoft requires this for Autopilot.

2. Create an Autopilot profile in Intune

3. Register a test workstation with Autopilot

4. Upload your organization's logo that end users will see during setup

5. Test Autopilot

Step 1: buy a Microsoft Intune license

Autopilot requires at least one Intune license to edit the Autopilot profile.

1. Sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center.

2. In the left-side bar select Marketplace.

3. On the Marketplace page, select All products and in the search bar below All products enter "Intune".

4. Find Microsoft Intune Plan 1 Device and select Details

5. On the Microsoft Intune Plan 1 Device page, select Buy and follow instructions to purchase the license.

6. Sign in to Entra admin center.

7. In the left-side bar, select Users > All users.

8. Select or create your Intune admin user and then select Licenses

9. Select + Assignments and assign the Microsoft Intune Plan 1 Device to this user.

Step 2: create an Autopilot profile

1. Sign in to Microsoft Intune using the Intune admin user from step 1.

2. In the left-side bar select Devices > Enroll devices. Under Windows Autopilot Deployment Program select Deployment Profiles to navigate to the Windows Autopilot deployment profiles page.

3. Select + Create profile > Windows PC and follow steps to create an Autopilot profile. On the Assignments step, select + Add all devices.

Step 3: register a test workstation

1. Open your test workstation and follow these Microsoft instructions to export your workstations's device hash as a CSV. The CSV should look something like DeviceHash_DESKTOP-2V08FUI.csv

2. In Intune, in the left-side bar, select Devices > Enroll devices. Under Windows Autopilot Deployment Program select Devices to navigate to the Windows Autopilot devices page.

3. Select Import and import your CSV.

4. After Intune finishes the import, refresh the Windows Autopilot devices page several times to confirm that your workstation is registered with Autopilot.

Step 4: upload your organization's logo

1. Navigate to Entra admin center.

2. In the left-side bar select Show more > User experiences > Company branding.

3. On the Company Branding page, select Configure.

4. Under Edit default sign-in experience select the Sign-in form tab and upload your logo to the Square logo (light theme) and Square logo (dark theme) fields.

5. In the bottom bar, select Review + Save and then Save.

Step 5: test Autopilot

1. Wipe your test workstation.

2. After it's been wiped, open your workstation and follow the setup steps. At screen in which you're asked to sign in, you should see the title "Welcome to [your organziation]!" next to the logo you uploaded in step 4.