110 PCWorld JULY 2019HERE’S HOW WINDOWS SANDBOX
“Windows within Windows” virtual machine
environment entirely from scratch, and walls it
off from your “real” PC. You can open a
browser and surf securely, download apps,
even visit websites that you probably
shouldn’t. Sandbox also includes a unique
convenience: it lets you copy files in and out
of the virtual PC, bringing them out of
quarantine if you’re sure they’re safe.
At any time, you can close Windows
Sandbox, and when you do, anything left
there is totally obliterated. If that dodgy
website rains malware down on your
Sandbox, all it takes is one click to shut it
down, without harm to your actual Windows
installation. Next time you launch a new
version of Sandbox, it will launch a pristine
version of Windows 10 to start anew.
You won’t need to buy a second copy of
Windows to use the
Windows Sandbox feature
either—though you will need
Windows 10 Pro or
Enterprise. The Home
version doesn’t support it.
Here’s everything you
need to know to start using
Windows Sandbox.GET STARTED
WITH WINDOWS
SANDBOX
Windows Sandbox, in a
window, looks likeWindows—because it is. It’s just another
Windows desktop firewalled from your
primary installation.
Technically, Windows Sandbox is a
lightweight virtual machine, a tool often
used by developers and researchers to test
new software within a controlled
environment. Virtualization creates an entire
virtual computer, complete with operating
system, storage, and memory, within your
existing Windows PC.
Granted, Windows already offers
Hyper-V to achieve similar tasks. 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.
Beyond the Windows 10 Pro requirement,
Windows Sandbox’s performance impactIf you open Windows Sandbox as a full-screen window, you’ll see
some additional icons. Clicking the cellular-style signal bar produces
this message, in part because the “remote” Windows you’re
connecting to isn’t remote at all.