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Windows Sandbox

techcommunity.microsoft.com

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Re: Windows Sandbox

#71

Post by cm2187 »

coder543 wrote: post #63
cm2187 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like get them to learn a lot of linux command lines?

I'm pretty sure that's not the only alternative... some others include a Chromebook, an iPad, a MacBook, or even installing a Linux distro and setting it up for them such that they don't need to use the CLI to accomplish the things they want to do. But honestly, my opinion is that Windows 10 is not as fragile as earlier versions of Windows were.

If the parents' problem is that they install random software, that's not going to help them. I have seen MacBooks with twenty spyware browser extensions.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#72

Post by finchisko »

chungy wrote: post #5

Sandboxie has been providing similar functionality on versions of Windows since XP: https://www.sandboxie.com/ It's probably nowhere near as elegant as the Windows 10 feature, but it should be very handy if you have older versions of Windows!

Sandboxie is actually still superior to this Windows Sandbox, as it allows you to continually run an app in the sandbox. In Windows Sandbox, once you close the app, your stored data, settings etc. are gone.

But yes, it's UI is horrible and might be difficult to setup (apps with incorrect setup might not even run).

Re: Windows Sandbox

#73

Post by coder543 »

JaRail wrote: post #68
n-gatedotcom wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then make Hyper-v home. Seriously this is a killer feature needed by everybody. And specially the non-pro users.

A lot (most?) of the hardware Home runs on doesn't support hardware virtualization.

Effectively all x86_64 hardware from the last 10+ years supports hardware virtualization, so I can't agree.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#74

Post by terhechte »

finchisko wrote: post #59
bfred_it wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t macOS doing that? The Mac App Store only allows sandboxed apps and macOS allows almost only apps from the store to be installed (+ certified developers) unless you change the system's settings.

On macOS some protection was added, so apps cannot write to system protected directories. But I was talking about all files that app creates. Like files in home dir (eg. ~/Library). If you remove the app, those files stay there and occupy space. The only way you can partly clean up the mess, is to delete home dir from time to time (but backup important files first). Even then, there might still be files in /usr/local…

A macOS app installed from the app store can only write to ~/Library/Containers/name.of.app.bundle. Those are not automatically trashed (as far as I know), but it is much easier to clean than the whole ~/Library. Actually, if all your apps are in /Applications it would be easy to write a small script that deletes everything in Containers that's a: not from Apple and b: doesn't have a app bundle identifier in /Applications

Re: Windows Sandbox

#75

Post by ttflee »

> you’ll need a compatible GPU and graphics drivers (WDDM 2.5 or newer)

Does WMMD 2.5 require drivers to implement SR-IOV capability for GPU? Or does Microsoft used some architecture similar to mediated device in VFIO?

Re: Windows Sandbox

#76

Post by finchisko »

laumars wrote: post #70
finchisko wrote: post #52

Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. And it's same on all known OSes. The side effect we see is system size growing in time. IMO running an app in a sandbox should be the default option. On Windows, I used to like sandboxie, which virtualized every write into single directory. Uninstall was easy as removing that dir. This MS sandbox doesn't a…

> Nowadays it's almost impossible to uninstall an app completely, because most of them creating files willy nilly. This has always been the case on Windows. In fact if anything, nowadays it’s better than its ever been because thanks to the UAC and other controls Microsoft have put in place, developers aren’t so free to do whatever they like to the host machine. But that’s remember a time before the UAC when it would…

It really is. I'm not talking about app binaries only. But about all files that app creates after install. Most of the reside in home dir, but stays there forever. Like various cache files, settings, ... And most of the time they are not confined to single dir.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#77

Post by org3432 »

Can the app detect if it's in the sandbox? If so, then it could just behave differently in the sandbox and then when used outside behave another way. I think the Linux systemd folks have the right idea with just running processes in their own cgroup regardless, this thing where programs go mucking around with stuff all over the place should be relegated to the past at this point.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#78

Post by LordViper128 »

neotek wrote: post #38

Only Microsoft would come up with a new security feature and then intentionally and arbitrarily limit its availability to the most expensive version of their OS. This is the same company that thinks putting ads in the fucking file explorer is appropriate on an OS they charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars for.

My perception with stuff like this has always been. Microsoft testing it out in the environment it's going to be used, and with expert supervision. Then after a couple of versions, normal users can get a solid version. I have seen this happen with Visual Studio and resounding tools.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#79

Post by JaRail »

revanx_ wrote: post #36

This is not a sandbox. All this does is launch windows in hyper-v virtual machine and configures the virtual environment automatically for you. You could achieve all of this yourself manually and you still wouldn't call it a sandbox, you would call it VM.

You can say you get the same result, yes. However this does it in a very different way. It's linking to the host OS's OS. It's not a VHD with a separate windows installation. That makes it quite a bit more lightweight. You don't have to patch it separately, etc. When installed, the sandbox image is only 100mb, mostly immutable links to host OS files.

Re: Windows Sandbox

#80

Post by superasn »

voltagex_ wrote: post #8
chungy wrote: post #5

Sandboxie has been providing similar functionality on versions of Windows since XP: https://www.sandboxie.com/ It's probably nowhere near as elegant as the Windows 10 feature, but it should be very handy if you have older versions of Windows!

Sandboxie is a UI nightmare IMO - it took me ages to work out how to launch a single program in a sandbox.

Yes it's one of the examples of brilliant coding marred by a very unintuitive user interface.

I've used it many times on occasion but always end up uninstalling it because it makes such simple things so complicated.

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