Microsoft 365 Enterprise customers can now try Application Guard as a new way to protect against malicious documents infecting computers.
What is Application Guard and what it means for Office 365
Application Guard is a combination of Windows 10 Defender and Office programs that opens a suspect document in a special way. With hardware virtualization, the document is isolated from the main computer so the doc can’t do any damage.
Unlike the Protected Document mode, Application Guarded documents can be edited, printed and saved as usual.
Setting up Application Guard is a job for Microsoft 365 Admins. It’s currently available for Microsoft 365 E5 or Microsoft 365 E5 Security plans. There are specific requirements for Windows 10 and Office all detailed here.
Is Application Guard available?
There’s no simple way to tell if Application Guard is available in your Office apps. No message in the Trust Center or other obvious location to confirm it’s available if needed.
The only way to know that Application Guard is working is to test it!
Open an untrusted document (maybe something emailed to you) and look for the tell-tale signs.
On the splash screen:
On the ribbon:
Or a shield addition to the taskbar icon:
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