Lack of applications is the first hurdle in that there's not a good way to see what really happens to the machine when opening that Word document or PDF because the application isn't available when the Sandbox launches. This feature has the potential to create a false sense of security in the form of 'I tested this PDF in the Sandbox and didn't see anything, it's OK to open it on my real desktop now'. Unfortunately, existing programs aren't available inside of the Sandbox, so there's no way to try out that new application to see how it interacts with everything else. It's a safe way to play with new software without risk to the programs you rely on to get work done.īut more frequently, I want to know whether an add-in is going to break the associated application or how a new program will interact with everything else that I have installed.

The simplest use case is testing a program to see if it works as intended or installs correctly.

This image is taken from Microsoft's announcement on the kernel blog: After installation, I copied a file to the Sandbox, ran it, then closed the Sandbox and noted that the Windows install reverted to a blank installation. Once Windows Sandbox is closed, all the software with all its files and state are permanently deleted. Any software installed in Windows Sandbox stays only in the sandbox and cannot affect your host. According to Microsoft's announcement, Sandbox isĪn isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to your PC. Windows Sandbox creates a clean environment with Internet access, but no local network or file access to test potentially harmful files in. The announcement is on the Windows Kernel blog here. It's a tool that can help with evaluations, but it's easy to fall into the trap of deeming something safe to run. That's the only real issue with Windows Sandbox: It's dangerous to advertise it as a security feature. This is a great way to test programs and configurations in a clean environment, but not a good way to determine whether an unknown file is safe, beyond 'works' vs. Taking advantage of native virtualization in the form of Hyper-V, Microsoft added the Sandbox feature to Windows 10, which provides a mechanism to run software in an isolated environment.

Windows 10 sandbox feature