Windows Sandbox - Do you need a Safe Place to practice your Magic?

Just like in the movie Doctor Strange, we all need a mirror dimension to test our applications. Windows Sandbox offers a lightweight desktop environment that allows you to safely run applications in isolation. Any software installed within the Windows Sandbox remains “sandboxed” and operates separately from your host machine.

A sandbox is temporary. When you close it, all software, files, and the current state are deleted. Each time you open the Windows Sandbox, you get a fresh instance.

Software and applications installed on the host machine are not directly accessible in the sandbox. If you need specific applications within the Windows Sandbox environment, you must explicitly install them there.

These are the windows editions that support Windows sandbox:

• Windows Pro
• Windows Enterprise
• Windows Pro Education/SE
• Windows Education

Following license will grand the windows sandbox license entitlements

• Windows Pro/Pro Education/SE
• Windows Enterprise E3
• Windows Enterprise E5
• Windows Education A3
• Windows Education A5

Prerequisites

• ARM64 (for Windows 11, version 22H2 and later) or AMD64 architecture
• Virtualization capabilities enabled in BIOS
• At least 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended)
• At least 1 GB of free disk space (SSD recommended)
• At least two CPU cores (four cores with hyper-threading recommended)

Step to Enable

1.  Ensure that your machine is using Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise, build version 18305 or Windows 11.
2. Enable virtualization on the machine.
• If you're using a physical machine, make sure virtualization capabilities are enabled in the BIOS.
• If you're using a virtual machine, you need to enable nested virtualization. If needed, also update the VM to support nested virtualization. Run the following PowerShell commands on the host: 

Set-VMProcessor -VMName <VMName> -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

Update-VMVersion -VMName <VMName>

To enable Sandbox using PowerShell, open PowerShell as Administrator and run the following command:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName "Containers-DisposableClientVM" -All -Online

Locate and select Windows Sandbox on the Start menu to run it for the first time.

Just like that we create our Windows mirror dimension. 

This is an excellent option for developers, security engineers, and various testers to evaluate their applications without risking harm to the host machine.