When a Perfect Intune Configuration Still Does Not Work

I recently set up a new Microsoft Intune environment for a client. Looking back, the part that stayed with me was not the configuration itself, but the support case that followed.

The tenant was a completely blank canvas: licences were assigned, but there were no existing policies or enrolled devices. As we support this client remotely, we built the environment around Windows Autopilot. The out-of-box experience makes remote device deployment considerably easier.

This was not my first Autopilot implementation, so I approached the project with confidence. Once everything had been configured and checked, I began the first test enrolment.

Autopilot enrolment broadly takes place in two stages. The device first joins Microsoft Entra ID, creating its device object within the directory. It is then handed over to the mobile device management platform, which in this case was Microsoft Intune, so that enrolment and policy application can begin.

Except the handover to Intune never happened.

I reviewed the configuration repeatedly until I was satisfied that everything was correct. I reset and re-enrolled the test machine several times, but every attempt reached exactly the same brick wall.

I then asked our distributor to review the setup and device logs in case I had missed something. They confirmed that the environment appeared to be configured correctly and escalated the case directly to Microsoft.

That was where things became interesting.

Microsoft’s first response was: “Could you try it again, please?”

My instinct was that another attempt would produce the same result, but it was necessary to move the support case forward. To my surprise, the device enrolled successfully on the first attempt. I repeated the process and it worked a second time, then a third.

Naturally, I asked what had changed.

The response was that nothing had been changed on Microsoft’s side and that the earlier failures were probably caused by a caching issue on the laptop.

I took two things away from the experience:

1. Intune and Autopilot projects should not be rushed. Unexpected obstacles can appear, and their eventual resolution may not always seem logical.
2. Even when the visible configuration is correct, the real cause of a problem may exist somewhere you cannot access or verify.

For businesses still considering mobile device management, I would argue that it stopped being optional some time ago. Organisations need a reliable way to configure, secure and manage devices wherever their users are working.

If you have encountered similar problems with Microsoft Autopilot or Intune, I would be interested to hear what happened and how you eventually resolved them.