Windows 365 For Dummies

Introduction

Hold onto your pants because Microsoft is about to change the world with Windows the same way they did with Office. About a decade ago Microsoft moved Office to a cloud-first product and dubbed it Office 365. Now Microsoft is doing the same with Windows and calling it Windows 365.

Windows 365 is a cloud-based PC. This seems like a strange idea. A PC is something you sit in front of, or sit on your lap, and type on. How could a computer move into the cloud? In a nutshell, the computer is virtual and lives in a Microsoft data center somewhere. You use just about any physical computer to connect to it over the Internet. To get your head around it, imagine your regular old work computer. You look at the screen and move the mouse around and type on the keyboard. You can save files to your desktop and double-click other files on your desktop to open them. You open applications by clicking on Start and then choosing from the list of software on the computer.

Now imagine that you separate all of that from the physical device you are using. In other words, your physical device just becomes a dumb terminal and all the things you normally do on your computer happen on your computer in the cloud. The primary benefit is that you don’t need to worry as much about spilling coffee on your computer or saving your work when you move from your office to home or anywhere in between. Your cloud computer always stays in the same state you left it, and you can connect to it and use it from ...