[adrian1338]

Hello all,

I am looking into the way of managing other's windows phone from a centralized location.
had quick read into family sharing but I am not sure if this is enough. basically I want to be able to do stuff with their phones like pushing out apps, updating software and managing settings on their phones. the others should ideally be able to opt in to this.
Problem is that I have managing to do of family and friends in 3 different countries. some of them in a language I don't even understand. so it makes it difficult to just explain the steps.
I bet company accounts could somehow manage this but I have no idea. keep in mind I am just some guy looking into this and no corporation willing to spend hundreds of £

[dKp1977]

The only way to achieve what you're looking for would be enrolling these devices in a company environment, which means you'd need to setup a Windows Server with Active Directory and stuff. And I'm not even sure it would cover everything you want to do. Other than that: impossible.

[adrian1338]

I have a windows server 2012 R2 running. but I would not want to rely on that server be in contact with the smartphones. would just boot it up in that case for managing reasons.

[dKp1977]

I have a windows server 2012 R2 running. but I would not want to rely on that server be in contact with the smartphones. would just boot it up in that case for managing reasons.

Since I've never used any of my devices in a company environment, I have no idea, what it takes to make it work, sorry. I assume each of these devices have to be connected to the server at least one time for initial setup. Considering that they're spread across multiple countries, that would require a VPN connection then. But besides the initial setup and the times you want to manage these devices, I doubt they have to be connected all the time.

[adrian1338]

Well thanks,
I know you can access the company apps with an email as well as the server IP.

lets see if anyone has company apps background here and can tell me if I can manage that with my vanilla windows server 2012 R2 or even different

[ITSCharles]

Its not possible on a small personal level I'm afraid.

At the moment I'm playing about with rolling out Windows Intune using System Center 2012 R2... Even with this enterprise level the settings and control over device is quite limited to be honest.

[tgp]

We played with Windows Intune at work a bit. We don't use it for managing mobile devices, but we were interested in seeing how it worked. So far we've only tried it with an Android device because it's easier to set up than WP or iOS. It worked quite well, and Intune has potential. However, it wouldn't come cheap for you!

[airjeff]

We setup Intune last year to manage our 4000+ mobile devices. It doesn't mange devices to the level you're talking about though. I can't force them to install an app, just send them to the store and they have to click install. Now, if you have an in-house app you can force the .appx out and it doesn't require user interaction. There is a paradigm shift with all the new devices, they are user devices first, company second. So that means they are designed to have light management that doesn't interfere with the user experience. It's been a bit of a shift for us as we always automate everything for the user.

The other thing to note is that Intune is a cloud based service. There is no way to make it a local install. You can run a 2012 server and install System Center Config Manager 2012 with the Intune connector, but you still need the subscription to Intune in the cloud for it to work.(and that would be overkill)

With the update to 8.1 apps will update automatically, unless they are in-house and not from the store.

Intune or pretty much any mobile device solution would manage many of the settings.