Today, I will explain Intune Help Desk Support Tools for Windows Devices Quick Review. Intune provides useful tools for help desk teams. For most organizations, help desk teams are the first level of support for all Intune or mobile device management issues.
As explained in this post, Intune Help Desk Support Tools will help the team get full speed on support scenarios.
I have a post explaining basic troubleshooting of Intune issues. This post would help Intune help desk teams better understand.
I would recommend reading the following post How to Start Troubleshooting Intune Issues.
Table of Contents
Intune Help Desk Support Tools?
Let me tell you, officially, there are no tools called Intune help desk support tools. I have termed some of the neat features of Intune as help desk support tools.
I have an Intune RBAC post to help you understand the security permissions needed for each role. I have classified Intune job roles into two(2) to understand better.
- Intune Help Desk – First(1) level support
- Intune Admin – Second(2) or Third(3) Level Support
All the tools or features the Intune Help Desk team uses can be termed Help Desk Support Tools. This post will show the video experience of a few Help Desk tools, Factory Reset and Restart.
Video Experience – Factory Reset and Restart of a Windows Device
Once the restart is initiated from Intune, users will have two(2) minutes to save their settings. These two(2) minutes of restart countdown can’t be customized.
The factory reset option was really quick, and it’s very dangerous if this happens to the user device as a human error. So be very careful before initiating a factory reset or fresh start via Intune.
Factory Reset a Windows Device
The factory reset from Intune can retain the enrollment state and user account if you wish to. This is the additional option you get when you factory reset the Windows 10 machine.
A factory reset returns the device to its default settings. The Retain enrollment state and user account option is only available for Windows 10 version 1709 or later.
MDM policies will be reapplied the next time the device connects to Intune. This removes all personal and company data and settings from this device.
You should be very careful before initiating a factory reset. You cannot revert this action; the user will lose all the data. This feature is one of the useful Intune Help Desk Support Tools to help users rebuild their machines.
Following are the Quick Steps to Initiate a Factory Reset of the Windows 10 Device
- Sign in to the Azure portal.
- Select All services, filter on Intune, and select Microsoft Intune.
- Select Devices > All devices.
- Select the name of the device that you want to factory reset.
- In the pane that shows the device name, select Factory reset.
Fresh Start of a Windows Device
The Intune Help Desk team can use the Fresh Start feature to reset a Windows device with some special options quickly.
The Fresh Start device action removes any apps installed on a Windows 10 PC running the Creators Update (1703) and automatically updates the PC to the latest version of Windows.
Fresh Start = CleanPC CSP
This Fresh Start action helps remove pre-installed called (OEM) apps and install new PC. Trail version applications, freeware, etc. To keep the contents of the user’s Home folder and only remove apps and settings, use the option “Retain user data on this device” setting.
Cleaning this device will remove all preloaded Win 32 apps and update the device for free to the current version of Windows 10. You can choose whether to retain user data on this device. This feature is also a handy option as Intune Help Desk Support tools.
Following are the Quick Steps to Initiate FRESH Start of Windows 10 Device
- Sign in to the Azure portal.
- Select All services, filter on Intune, and select Microsoft Intune.
- Select Devices > All devices.
- Select the name of the device that you want to FRESH Reset.
- In the pane that shows the device name, select FRESH Start.
Resources
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Author
Anoop C Nair is Microsoft MVP! He is a Device Management Admin with more than 20 years of experience (calculation done in 2021) in IT. He is a Blogger, Speaker, and Local User Group HTMD Community leader. His primary focus is Device Management technologies like SCCM 2012, Current Branch, and Intune. He writes about ConfigMgr, Windows 11, Windows 10, Azure AD, Microsoft Intune, Windows 365, AVD, etc.