Company portal – Install option grayed out due to primary user

 

Introduction:

During my testing of Intune's delivery optimization feature using win32 apps, I encountered an issue where the installation option for an application was grayed out on one device while working fine on another. In this blog post, I will share my troubleshooting journey and explain the concept of primary users in Intune and how it affects app installations.

Testing Environment:

For the purpose of my testing, I selected two devices: PC1 and PC2. Both the devices are enrolled in Intune and made several apps, including Adobe Reader and other large apps above 500MB, available to the user group associated with these devices.

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Different App Install Options:

When I logged into PC1, launched the company portal, and clicked on the apps section, I could see the Adobe Reader app listed. I clicked on the install button, and the installation proceeded without any issues.

However, when I performed the same steps on PC2, the application was listed but the install option was greyed out.

PC1:

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PC2:

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Understanding Primary Users:

On PC2, I clicked on the "Devices" section to gather more information, and a message appeared stating, "This device is already assigned to someone in your organization. Contact company support about becoming the primary user."

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This prompted me to explore the concept of primary users in Intune.

Intune's Primary User:

The primary user of a device is automatically assigned by Intune during or soon after the enrollment process. The enrollment method used determines when the primary user is added to a device. To learn more about the primary user and its enrollment method, I referred to the Microsoft article Find the primary user of a Microsoft Intune device. | Microsoft Learn

Resolution Options:

Returning to the issue at hand, the grayed-out install option on PC2 was due to the fact that the user logged into the company portal was not the primary user. I considered two options to resolve this:

1. Convert PC2 to a Shared PC: Removing the primary user designation would convert the device into a shared PC. On shared PCs, user-targeted apps continue to work as expected, irrespective of the primary user.

2. Assign a New Primary User: Alternatively, I could remove the existing primary user from PC2 and assign a new primary user who would be the main user of the PC.

Resolution Implemented:

In my case, I chose the first option and removed the primary user designation for PC2 using the Intune console. I then initiated a device sync to refresh the policies. As a result, PC2 was successfully converted into a shared device, allowing the user-targeted applications to be installed.  You may have to close the company portal and launch it again to see the updated policies in the company portal.

There are many other differences between shared PC vs primary user set to the device, but the application installation is one of the most critical. There are several methods (scripts) to update the primary user for the device that are frequently used by the users based on the usage.

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PC2:

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I have got the application installed successfully and able to continue test the delivery optimization feature

Fore more information about how user affinity works in intune, refer Support Tip: How User Device Affinity works in Intune - Microsoft Community Hub

Hope this post is useful.

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