ITProCloud Blog
Welcome to my blog. I'm writing this blog to share my experiences mainly in IT focused on Microsoft Azure. The blog is part of the ITProCloud GmbH.
Archive of posts with category 'Azure Virtual Desktop'
Azure Windows Virtual Desktop administration with WVDAdmin
Correctly configured, Azure Virtual Desktop sends diagnostic data to a log analytics workspace (Azure Monitor). There are several logs containing data about the events in the backend:
I was searching for an option to group all AVD hosts (Entra and hybrid joined) of a pool in a dynamic device group. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a perfect solution...
Running OneDrive with Azure Virtual Desktop is a common scenario and enables users to work in a modern way with Teams and SharePoint. If FSLogix is used, there is a...
Current issues: AVD agent reports an issue and brings the hosts into “Need Assistance”
First Logon Experience and language selector and an app starter for remote apps on network paths
If you are running Azure Virtual Desktop with FSLogix, the first login to a host takes longer than the following logins. I also wrote about this effect (I call is...
Windows gives you access to work with Windows Update on an API level. This is often used to find, download, and install new updates programmatically. That makes special sense in...
VM- Session Host relation In Azure Virtual Desktop, session hosts in host pools are providing remote applications or desktops to users. A session host is an object in a host...
Azure confidential VMs offer strong security and confidentiality for customers by isolating data. That can also make sene for Azure Virtual Desktop. One of my favorite deployment methods is the...
The Azure Marketplace offers many preconfigured VMs, which are preconfigured images from a third-party vendor used to deploy a VM. One popular offering is “CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on...
Manage Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure Stack HCI with Hydra
Microsoft introduced a new feature for Virtual Machines: Hibernation (link to MS post). That is awesome and allows totally new scenarios, not even for Azure Virtual Desktop. But used with...
Microsoft made the New Teams client available for VDIs (preview)
While migrating Virtual Desktop Environments to AVD, I got another challenge from the past: Sometimes, companies use the client IP address to identify the user’s location to map a specific...
The Golden-Master approach is a common way to deploy applications and desktops as session hosts in Azure Virtual Desktop. The approach is very simple, and the rollout of new session...
Note: If your source VM is based on the VM generation V1, follow this post to convert your VM: Creating a Windows Azure VM Generation V2 from a V2 VM....
Microsoft has provided different VM sizes over the last years and also introduced the VM Generation V2 at the end of 2019. V2 VMs are different from V1 VMs and...
Onboarding session hosts to Defender is very important for security reasons. Microsoft has documented the way to onboard these devices in different scenarios here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/defender-endpoint/configure-endpoints-vdi
During June/July, I got several emails that session hosts were not available in AVD, but the VMs were in a running state. Rebooting the host sometimes helps, and the host...
Login error: Protocol Error Code 0x112f
Around 2.5 years ago, I introduced a feature in WVDAdmin to install applications from a list of thousands of VM and hosts. That was based on the Microsoft Package Manager...
With AAD-Kerberos, you can use AAD-only joined session hosts with FSLogix. This is a great approach to working more cloud-native. With AAD-Kerberos, the session hosts don’t need to have network...
With my tools WVDAdmin and Hydra for Azure Virtual Desktop, you can easily manage Azure Virtual Desktop. It also includes the deletion of session hosts and VMs with a single...
Azure AD-only joined are getting more common in Azure Virtual Desktop. There are some challenges running AVD hosts as AAD-only. One challenge is that you can roll out a new...
Handling user sessions in AVD could be more intuitive in the Azure Portal. Luckily, some tools (like WVDAdmin, Hydra, and others) are available to make it easier. I made a...
A common way to build virtual machines based on an image in Azure (e.g., as Session hosts for Azure Virtual Desktop) can be done by the “Golden Image” approach.
If you run Azure Virtual Desktop in a data center in another country, you maybe know that the browsers are showing some websites in the data center location language. For...
Update October 2022: Check out the following Workbook to use diagnostic logging to get and visualize the data
Hydra for Azure Virtual Desktop and WVDAdmin are supporting ADE for AVD Session Hosts.
Trusted launch for Azure virtual machines is currently in public preview (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/trusted-launch). The trusted launch has some benefits, like:
Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Administration for CSP and Consulting Partners
Monitoring Azure Virtual Desktop is important to get insights into the performance and resource usage and alert if something generally goes wrong. Especially, getting alerted if something goes wrong is...
A while ago, I wrote a blog post about saving money by smartly switching the disk types of Azure VMs. But what’s about using reserved instances instead of switching VMs...
Using MSIX AppAttach in Azure Virtual Desktop is great. To stage the MSIX AppAttach packages, the session host needs permission to read the package. If the package is placed on...
While working with Azure Virtual Desktop, I still miss some features that seem unavailable through Microsoft or maybe a 3rd party vendor. One of the features is that an admin/helpdesk...
A few days ago, I got an email from a customer concerning that a lot of Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) session hosts showing an error message from the internal health...
In March 2021, I introduced a new feature for #WVDAdmin to change the disk type of a VM to automatically change the disk type before starting a VM and after...
I’m pleased that my project Hydra is now listed in the Azure Marketplace as a deployable solution into the customers’ subscription - which is essential to make sure that no...
One of the announcements of the Microsoft Inspire 2021 was the option to join session hosts #AAD only. I’m happy to have the implementation also ready in #WVDAdmin.
Project Hydra for Azure Virtual Desktop Six months ago, I started a new project to provide a solution to manage Azure Virtual Desktop / Windows Virtual Desktop in an automated...
Power-On-Connect Feature in Windows Virtual Desktop Power-on-connect is in preview for assigned session hosts and pooled session hosts (multi-user host pool). With the new feature, users are triggering the start...
A Windows 10 image from the marketplace has a size of 128 Gbyte. So, all of your VM based on that image are deployed with a 128 Gbyte disk -...
Microsoft is extending the HTML5 web client. Today (May 2021), there is a new function to allow uploading files directly into the session. The user can select the feature while...
The costs of running virtual machines in Azure summarize the costs of their components like VM type (compute), storage, network, and some other parts. While the spendings for the compute...
I’m working in the WVD/AVD area and often create golden images to deploy session hosts for WVD/AVD - mainly based on Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session. To do that, I create...
Microsoft offers an easy way to monitor a WVD/AVD environment’s basic metrics directly integrated into the Azure portal. I mostly extend the monitoring using sepago’s Azure Monitor for WVD (https://www.sepago.de/en/azure-monitor-en/),...
WVDAdmin is my free community solution to manage and work with WVD/AVD / Windows Virtual Desktop. Mainly, building images and rolling out session hosts are key-value-adds. But you can also...
Custom Scripts with WVDAdmin
Azure Monitor / Log Analytics is my first choice to store log and usage data. Even for Azure Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD/AVD), it is crucial to have an eye on...
Administration, deployment, user support of Azure Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) needs permission in Azure. But these permissions are depending on the task a group of users/administrators have to do. For...
WVD allows local administrators to shadow user sessions. You can do this easily with WVDAdmin or using the command-line like this:
I’m working in the WVD/AVD area and often create golden images to deploy session hosts for WVD/AVD - mainly based on Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session. To do that, I create...
The long await update from WVD/AVD is public. It comes with a full ARM integration and is natively useable in the Azure Portal. Some things changed from the Fall to...
The long await update from WVD/AVD is public. It comes with a full ARM integration and is natively useable in the Azure Portal. The change from Fall to Spring (the...
Azure Windows Virtual Desktop - Spring Release / Spring Update goes public today. I’m tremendously happy about that while this is the next big step that we have eagerly awaited....
Today (early April), it’s not possible to join groups to application groups or desktop in Windows Virtual Desktop. Users have to be assigned directly with their user principal name (UPN)....
Feel free to use it and download the 64-bit Windows application “WVD Admin Preview” from here: WVDAdmin-Preview.msi
Language packs on Windows sometimes cause some issues or strange behaviors to some applications. One problem I can reproduce is the impact of the RDAgent from Microsoft - the agent...
This month I started to build my fourth tool around Microsoft Windows Virtual Desktop. This new one, called “Azure Starter for WVD” is a self-service portal for users using WVD....
Using Azure Starter for Azure Windows Virtual Desktop in 2-AAD-Environment (Microsoft Demo Case)
Automatic MSIX App Attach script for WVD
Windows Virtual Desktop is released and gateways around the world are available - even in Europe which cause in a low latency - perfect.