Recently a few different customers told me they have plans to replace their expensive and hard to manage thin clients with cheaper Windows 10 fat-clients. And I think it’s a good move because you can easily configure Windows 10 in Kiosk mode via Microsoft Intune (by the time of writing this blog still in preview). With Windows 10 in Kiosk mode you can replace the Windows 10 shell with a dedicated application that will run full screen, without having the option to close that application.
In the case of a thin client replacement, you can run a web browser full screen that will load the page of the Microsoft MyApps portal, or the Citrix StoreFront page for example. To access the corporate published applications or desktop(s).
In this blog I will show you how to configure this.
My Environment
For this blog I have installed one Windows 10 devices (Kiosk01) with a local user and enrolled with Microsoft Intune (no policies applied so far). I have created a group named “Kiosk-devices” and added the Kiosk01 device to it.
Publish the Microsoft Kiosk Browser
In this blog I will use the Microsoft Kiosk Browser app to run full screen on the Kiosk device. The Microsoft Kiosk Browser application is a Windows store app. The easiest way to add this application to your Microsoft Intune app catalog is via the Microsoft Store for Business website.
Login to the Microsoft Store for Business website and search for the Kiosk Browser.
Click Get the app
Click Close
Open the Azure Portal and navigate to Microsoft Intune > Client apps > Microsoft Store for Business and click the Sync button.
The kiosk browser will now appear between the other applications. Open the Apps tab and click on the Kiosk Browser application. Click Assignments, and then click Add group.
Select the group of devices you want to configure in Kiosk mode (in my case Kiosk-devices). Click OK and click Save.
Navigate to Microsoft Intune > Device configuration. Click Profiles and then click +Create profile
Configure the following;
Name: Fill in a name (in my case Win10 – Kiosk – Single App
Description: something you like
Platform: Windows 10 and later
Profile type: Kiosk (Preview)
Then click Settings
On the settings page, configure the following;
Select a kiosk mode: Single app, full-screen kiosk
User login type: In my case I will configure Auto logon, but you can also choose for a local or domain user
Application type: Add Kiosk browser (in my case, but you can choose any app you like)
Click Kiosk browser settings
Here you can configure the Kiosk browser application. You can configure if Navigation buttons, Home buttons and End session buttons must be visible. You can also configure the Default home page URL (for example the MyApps portal or the Citrix Storefront website) and the allowed websites. After configuring the rights settings click OK
The final step is to Assign this profile to the group of devices you want to configure in Kiosk mode. Open the Assignments page and select the right device group.
Test the results
It’s time to test the results of this configuration. I have checked that the Kiosk Browser and the just created Kiosk profile is applied to the machine (in my case a virtual machine for testing).
After the reboot Windows is preparing the Kiosk mode for the first time
Windows 10 will automatically login and the Kiosk Browser application is started in full screen mode with the website I configured earlier in the Kiosk Profile. I also don’t have the options to close this application or start another application.