Windows Sandbox! Testing .exe files made easy & safe!

This may be too late to talk about it but, if you never heard of it then please continue… 😉

So, Have you ever been In a situation where you want to test an application (.exe) on your machine but you never wanted to install it? Or may be you feel something fishy about it but still want to try? Or may be don’t want to flood your system with junk apps?

Well in that case #Microsoft got you covered with its new tool “Windows Sandbox”.

Here is how it looks! 😍😍

Windows Terminal App.

Well, You may say its the same windows screen So yes, but Its an emulated windows 10 on your base windows 10 installation ( Or Simply said Virtual Image).

Any App installation or Installation or weird things that you may do on this image, will be discarded when you close the sandbox app Just like any other App! Don’t you think its pretty Cool! No need to worry about corrupting your base system or need of installation of third party software like Virtual box!

(Note : Before you proceed make sure you have Hyper-v enabled if not head over here and enable it.
If your system does not support Hyper-v then, Sorry then You may not be able to use it 😐!)

So, How to setup?

• Open Start and search “Features” and click on option “Turn Windows Features on and Off”

• Look for “Windows Sandbox” and check if not checked.

Enable windows features on and off

Note : You may be prompted for restart. Just allow the restart. You will see typical windows installation screen don’t worry, let it complete the installation.

• Once Installation is complete and system is up search for “Windows sandbox”

Windows sandbox app

• Double click to open it and Voila you are all done! 🎉🎉

How to Test Apps (.exe files)?

• Download the .exe file.

Download the .exe

• Simply Copy the .exe file from your base machine to sandbox window. (Why drag drop not supported! 😑)
• Install the .exe and use it as you would do!

Install the app

• Once done. Hit the close button on top. You may be asked for confirmation and you are done 😲😲!

• Your base system remain unaffected!

IMP : Minimum requirements :

From official documentation :

• Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education build 18305 or later (Windows Sandbox is currently not supported on Home SKUs)
• 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 hyperthreading recommended)

I hope you loved reading this short article! Stay tuned for some more articles like this!

😊😊