Setup Guide – Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education (Preview)

After many years of development, Microsoft has released a public preview of the standalone connected cache, officially named Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise and Education. Here is a quick guide for setting up the standalone cache (MCC).

Update July 23, 2025: Microsoft announced the general availability (GA) of the standalone Microsoft Connected Cache solution today. Since the non-Preview setup is different, use this guide instead:

Requirements

To use the standalone version of MCC, you need a machine – a physical device or VM – running Windows 11, Windows Server 2022/2025, or Linux. You also need an Azure subscription and E3/E5 or A3/A5 licenses. For more details on licensing, check this page: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/do/mcc-ent-prerequisites

Step-by-step Guide

For this guide, I used a Windows 11 Hyper-V VM for my MCC setup. Here are the steps:

1. Deploy a Windows 11 VM on a Hyper-V host supporting nested virtualization. I used a Windows 11 Enterprise 23H2 image, and the VM was running on an HP Z8 G4 Workstation. I named the VM MCC01 and gave it a 240 GB disk, 8 GB RAM, and 4 vCPUs.

2. On the Hyper-V host, enable nested virtualization on the MCC01 VM, the command is:

Set-VMProcessor -VMName MCC01 -ExposeVirtualizationExtensions $true

3. On the MCC01 VM, create a user account named MCCAccount, and add to the local Administrators group

4. Using an elevated Command prompt, install WSL using this command, and then reboot the VM:

wsl --install -d Ubuntu

5. Navigate to the Azure portal (https://portal.azure.com), go to the Marketplace, search for Microsoft Connected Cache for Enterprise, and create the solution. I recommend using a separate resource group.

6. In the new Connected Cache for Enterprise & Education solution, expand Cache Node Management, and create a new cache node (I named mine MCC01).

7. In the MCC01 cache node properties, download the provisioning package (about 1 GB), and in the provisioning tab, make a note of the command to install it. I downloaded my package to the C:\Setup\MCC-WSL-Installer folder on MCC01.

8. On the MCC01 VM, use the below PowerShell script to install the MCC container. Replace the guid values with your values from the provisioning tab. The values below are just dummy guids and will not work.

# Define credentials
$User = "MCC01\MCCAccount"
$myLocalAccountCredential = Get-Credential

# Run installer script for the MCC01 Cache Node
# Replace the below guids with your values, the below example is just dummy guids and will not work.
Set-Location "C:\Setup\MCC-WSL-Installer"
./provisionmcconwsl.ps1 -installationFolder C:\mccwsl01 -customerid c62be688-a932-4cc5-b6ae-0b3d80847268 -cachenodeid bc4d0cc6-5824-4e10-a1cf-6be2e24bc695 -customerkey 27f4a706-44c4-4839-b645-2c43de0db68c -registrationkey a70ef781-f775-4ce3-b461-7837a8f58379 -cacheDrives "/var/mcc,150" -mccRunTimeAccount $User -mccLocalAccountCredential $myLocalAccountCredential

9. Go back to the Azure portal, and wait until the MCC01 cache node shows up as healthy.

10. To verify that the MCC responds, In a PowerShell prompt, run the below command:

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "http://localhost/filestreamingservice/files/7bc846e0-af9c-49be-a03d-bb04428c9bb5/Microsoft.png?cacheHostOrigin=dl.delivery.mp.microsoft.com"

11. Configure your clients to use the connected cache node, either via GPO's, Intune policies, or via DHCP. See this post for more details on DHCP setup: https://www.deploymentresearch.com/setup-microsoft-connected-cache-for-windows-autopilot-and-other-staging-scenarios/

12. On a few clients, verify that they are downloading content from the cache server. Either by running the Get-DeliveryOptimizationPerfSnapThisMonth PowerShell cmdlet, or by viewing the Delivery Optimization activity monitor in Settings.

13. In the Azure portal, select the connected cache solution and select Overview.