Edge browser and File Explorer windows opened within Sandbox won’t identify themselves as the Sandbox versions. Feel free to play around with the Windows Settings within Sandbox, if you’d like, and see how it differs from your main Windows installation.īecause Windows Sandbox isn’t run as a virtual machine, but as an app, there’s not as much of a performance hit on your PC as a true virtual machine. Pay attention to it-the last thing you want to do is carelessly switch back to your “real” PC and open that dodgy website that you meant to launch in Sandbox. That’s fine, especially as Microsoft has helpfully placed a large, Windows XP-style header at the top of the window, reminding you that you’re working within Sandbox. You’ll probably be immediately tempted to open Windows Sandbox as a full-screen app. An empty Sandbox window consumed about 1.2GB of memory in our tests running on a first-generation Surface Laptop, so you may be able to leave a Sandbox window open.
You’ll see this for several seconds each time you launch Sandbox.
Microsoft has said previously that it will “freeze” the state of the virtual machine, archive it, and bring it up when you launch Windows Sandbox again-basically, everything should launch faster next time around. It may take a minute or two to load, if only because Windows needs to establish the virtual machine.
To enable Sandbox, you can simply type Windows Sandbox into the Windows search box. When the installation process is completed, there won’t be any bells or whistles.
To enable Windows Sandbox, you’ll first need to install it. Windows will install the necessary files and may need to reboot your PC. To enable Sandbox, you’ll need to scroll down and check the proper box. To enable it, you’ll need to go to the Windows Features control panel, which you can find by searching for Turn Windows features on and off. Windows Sandbox is an alternate feature of Windows, and it won’t be installed by default even if it’s available to you.
(Virtually all Intel processors sold since 2016 support virtualization, though this Intel guide explains how to check.
Clicking the cellular-style signal bar produces this message, in part because the “remote” Windows you’re connecting to isn’t remote at all.īeyond the Windows 10 Pro requirement, Windows Sandbox’s performance impact demands a modern, fairly powerful machine with virtualization capabilities. Here are the minimum specifications for the feature: If you open Windows Sandbox as a full-screen window, you’ll see some additional icons. What makes Sandbox so appealing is that Sandbox is to Hyper-V as Windows 10’s Mail app is to Outlook: a simplified, user-friendly version of a much more complex application. Granted, Windows already offers Hyper-V to achieve similar tasks. Virtualization creates an entire virtual computer, complete with operating system, storage, and memory, within your existing Windows PC. Technically, Windows Sandbox is a lightweight virtual machine, a tool often used by developers and researchers to test new software within a controlled environment. It’s just another Windows desktop firewalled from your primary installation. Windows Sandbox, in a window, looks like Windows-because it is. Get started with Windows Sandbox Mark Hachman / iDG Here’s everything you need to know to start using Windows Sandbox.