LAB D – Windows Sandbox

In this lab you will enable Windows Sandbox.

You will need the Windows 11 VM only.

Shut down the Windows 11 VM.
Once shutdown, open a PowerShell prompt on the host by searching for PowerShell, right-click on the app and open it as Administrator. Enter the following single command:

Set-VMProcessor -VMName “Windows 11” -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

Start the Windows 11 VM and log in as Alice (password: Pa$$w0rd).

The Windows Sandbox service relies on the Hardware Virtualisation features of modern hardware. Because a virtual machine is being used to demonstrate this technology, the hardware virtualisation extension needs to be presented to the virtual machine.

Click on the Search icon and enter features. Open the Optional features app.
Scroll to the bottom and click on More Windows features on the right.
On the Windows features dialog, scroll down until you find Windows Sandbox. Check the box and click OK.

Once the installation is complete, reboot the Windows 11 VM and log back in.
Click on the Search icon, type Sandbox and start the Windows Sandbox

The Windows Sandbox should load in about 30-60 seconds.

Once connected compare the contents of File Explorer C:\ between the sandbox and the Windows 11 VM, notice they are different. The Sandbox is presented with a clean isolated file system.

Create a new text file on the desktop of the sandbox (right-click on the Desktop).
Close the Windows Sandbox by clicking the X in the top right corner of the window.

Note the contents of the pop-up dialog.

Start the Windows Sandbox again.

Note that the Sandbox is completely clean.

This has now installed the sandbox service and we can use it with the default configuration. This document describes the current configuration changes that can be made by using an XML file:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-kernel-internals/windows-sandbox-config-files/ba-p/354902