Microsoft has shipped a new feature in Windows 10 Pro and Enterprise builds 18305 and up that let users create throwaway desktop environments for testing and developing software.

Normally, developers have to spin up a virtual machine or use a separate system specifically for running new or untrusted apps. But the new feature, called Windows Sandbox, uses the container technologies recently added to Windows to provide a high degree of isolation for individual programs, Microsoft says.

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When launched, Windows Sandbox presents a Windows desktop running in a window, similar to a VM. Files and applications can simply be dragged and dropped, or copied and pasted, into the sandbox process, then run as is. Nothing running in the sandbox process affects the host. When the sandbox is closed, all its content is erased.

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