Microsoft is making available System Center Configuration Manager and System Center Endpoint Protection Technical Preview 2. This second technical preview provides you with an early glimpse of the functionality that we plan to release in Q4 of this calendar year, bringing with it full support for client deployment, upgrade, and management of Windows 10.

New features available in Technical Preview 2 include:

Universal Windows apps support for Windows 10 – You can now side-load internally developed Universal Windows apps to Windows 10 devices.
Peer cache support for Windows PE – Peer cache support now includes OS deployment scenarios for Windows PE, extending our existing Configuration Manager peer cache content management.
Ability to manage Windows 10 PCs and mobile devices via MDM with on-premises Configuration Manager infrastructure – Support now includes Windows 10 PCs in addition to existing support for mobile devices which was added in the first Technical Preview. With this new option, you can manage Windows 10 devices using Configuration Manager integrated with Microsoft Intune (hybrid) without the need to store your data in the cloud. This is especially helpful for managing devices that are unable to connect to the Internet such as Windows IoT/Embedded devices. Note: An Intune subscription is required.

Also included in this technical preview are features that were previously released in the first Technical Preview in May:

Support for Windows 10 upgrade with OS deployment task sequence – In addition to providing support for existing wipe-and-load (refresh) scenarios, the Configuration Manager Technical Preview includes enhanced upgrade support with in-place upgrade to Windows 10.
Support for installing Configuration Manager on Azure Virtual Machines – Similar to how you can install Configuration Manager on Hyper-V today, you can now run Configuration Manager in Azure VMs. This provides flexibility to move some or all of your datacenter server workloads to the cloud with Azure.

So what’s the next step? Try out System Center Configuration Manager Technical Preview 2, and tell us what you think. Also, if you have a feature request, make sure to share your ideas with us on our new Configuration Manager UserVoice site.

Configuration Manager Resources

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