Since my article on Windows Intune, I have gotten a lot of questions. So I am going to start a series of Windows Intune blog post. More on Windows Intune can be found at:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hh781469
To view the Help for the latest release of Windows Intune, see the Windows Intune October 2011 Release Help Home
Windows Intune™ is an Internet-based management service that lets you centrally manage client computers in your organization. Windows Intune helps reduce the total cost of managing software by providing a categorized view of key data about client computers (such as software updates and malicious software, or malware, that was detected or recently resolved) and by translating the data into usable information.
Windows Intune consists of two parts:
The Windows Intune service collects information about programs installed on computers that have the Windows Intune client software installed. This guide describes how to install and remove the client software.
Computers on which you want to install the Windows Intune client software must satisfy requirements in this section.
You can install the Windows Intune client software on computers that are running any of the following Windows operating systems:
Important
Windows XP SP 2 is not supported on client computers that run the Windows Intune July Beta release or the Windows Intune October 2011 release.
The Windows Intune client software is supported on both x86-based and x64-based editions of the previous operating systems. Itanium-based (IA-64) systems are not supported by the Windows Intune client software.
If client computers that you want to manage by using Windows Intune are behind firewalls or proxy servers, you must configure the firewall or proxy server to let Windows Intune communicate with client computers. For more information, see Appendix B: Firewall and Proxy Server Settings for Client Computers.
If the client computers run anti-malware software that is not manufactured by Microsoft, see Appendix A: Preparing Client Computers for Endpoint Protection.
Note
To use Windows Intune to manage client computers that are running Windows XP Professional SP 2, you must install the following updates:
To install the Windows Intune client software, a computer must satisfy any hardware requirements for the operating system and have the following, at minimum:
You must be a member of the Administrators group on the computer on which you want to install the Windows Intune client software.
You should verify that all client computers have the latest Windows updates and service packs installed before you install the Windows Intune client software.
When you download and run the Windows Intune client software package as described in Download the client software, the software performs two tasks, in the following order:
After the enrollment process is complete, you must restart computers that are running Windows Vista or Windows 7. As remaining agents are downloaded and installed, they report their status to the service. Agents that are not properly installed or enrolled correctly are shown to administrators in the Windows Intune console as alerts.
Windows Intune client software installation is typically complete and working with the service within 30 minutes.
To start to deploy the client software, plan how you will organize computers that you want to manage by using Windows Intune, to help avoid conflicts with domain-level Group Policy. For more information, see Plan for Deployment in Enterprises that are Managed by Using Group Policy.