Windows Sandbox: How to use Microsoft’s virtual Windows PC to secure your digital life

Microsoft may have positioned its easy-peasy Windows Sandbox within the Windows 10 May 2019 Update as a safe zone for testing untrusted applications, but it’s much more than that. Windows Sandbox, and sandboxing PC apps in general, give you a solution for trying a “utility” that may be malware, or a website that you’re not sure about. You could leave those potentially dangerous elements alone, but with Sandbox, you can be a little more adventurous.

Windows Sandbox creates a secure “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