Restore points are useful for recovering a PC to a previously working condition, whether it’s on a local or Windows 365 Cloud PC. You may want to share a Cloud PC and its contents in order to create a geographically distributed copy, make a copy during the off-boarding process, get a historical view for eDiscovery, or create a VHD that can be mounted on a physical device.
Here are the steps to follow:
1. Prerequisites:
– A Cloud PC with restore points
– An account that can manage Cloud PCs and has access to the Azure subscription (and create a storage account)
2. Share a single restore point:
– Sign into the Microsoft Intune admin center.
– Navigate to Devices > All devices > select a device > select the ellipses (…) > Share (preview).
– In the Select restore point (preview) area, choose a Subscription and Storage account.
– Select Share (preview).
– A folder will be created in the storage account with the same name as the Cloud PC. It will contain a VHD copy of the Cloud PC device disk.
3. Share multiple restore points:
– Sign into the Microsoft Intune admin center.
– Navigate to Devices > All devices > Bulk Device Actions.
– On the Basics page, select the following options:
– OS: Windows
– Device action: Share Cloud PC restore point to storage (preview)
– Specify date and time: Choose a date and time for the Cloud PC restore point you want to share.
– Select restore point time range: Choose one of the following options:
– Before specified date and time
– After specified date and time
– Whichever is closest (before or after specified date and time)
– Choose a Subscription and Storage account > Next.
– On the Devices page, select the Cloud PCs you want to share restore points for > Select > Next.
– On the Review + create page, confirm your choices > Create.
– A folder will be created in the storage account for each Cloud PC restore point shared. Each folder will contain a VHD copy of the Cloud PC device disk.
4. Download the restore point from the storage account:
– Sign in to the Azure portal.
– Go to the Storage accounts.
– Click on the storage account you used earlier.
– Click on Storage browser from the menu.
– From the Storage browser, select Blob containers to get an overview of the content.
– Click on the item to view the .VHD file and get more information.
– Click the Download button in the ribbon to start the download.
– Once the download is complete, use Hyper-V to create a new VM with the downloaded disk. You may need to convert the disk type from .VHD to .VHDX using the PowerShell command provided in the article.
To restore from a Windows Cloud backup, follow these steps:
– Sign into the Microsoft Intune admin center > Devices > Windows 365 > All Cloud PCs > choose the Cloud PC to restore.
– Select Restore (preview) > under Select restore point, choose the point you want to restore to > Select.
– In the confirmation dialog box, select Restore.
Windows 365 has a limit of 10 restore points for Frequency of restore-point service. Choosing a shorter frequency will result in a shorter overall history of restore points.