Just like with the rapid development of Windows Virtual Desktop itself, the Remote Desktop client for Windows also get at least an update every month. Microsoft keeps a good record of what’s new with every new version, you can find here. Beside a 32-bit and a 64-bit version, you also have the Public and an Insider version. The Insider version is intent for testing upcoming features before...
Category - Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD)
How to publish the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) with Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD)
The Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) enables the IT administrator to remotely manage the (local) domain with tools like “Active Directory Users and Computers”, “DNS” and “Group Policy Management”. You can install RSAT locally on a Windows device, but to use the tools, you still need to be connected to the local network or, if you are working remotely, setup a VPN connection first.
How to change the default Windows Virtual Desktop “SessionDesktop” name to a more friendly one with PowerShell or GUI
When you create a new Windows Virtual Desktop Host pool, a default “Desktop Application Group” (DAG) will be created for you. When you assign a user or an Azure AD Security group to this Desktop group, the user(s) will see a desktop icon appear in their Remote Desktop client with the name “SessionDesktop”. You can easily change this name to a more friendly name with PowerShell or the GUI, as I...
Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) – Image Management : How to manage and deploy custom images (including versioning) with the Azure Shared Image Gallery (SIG)
A lot of questions I receive about Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) are about Image Management. Questions like; How can I create a custom image and apply updates on it? What about versioning and the possibility to rollback an image version? All these functions are available with Windows Virtual Desktop, together with the Azure Shared Image Gallery (SIG). In this blog I will show you step-by-step how...
How to install and configure Microsoft Teams (Public Preview) for Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD)
Recently, Microsoft released the Public Preview of Microsoft Teams for Windows Virtual Desktop environments. With the new media optimizations included in this version of Microsoft Teams for Windows Virtual Desktop, a local connection will be made between users for audio and video redirection while the application itself is running in the Windows Virtual Desktop environment. This will give end...
After a long wait the next version of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) is now in public preview. This next version is also known as “WVDv2” and “Spring Release” and there are a lot of changes since the first GA release back in 2019 of WVD. To begin, it is now fully integrated with the Microsoft Azure portal, meaning, there is now an official supported management UI, you can now assign applications...
How to create an Azure Service Principal for use with Windows Virtual Desktop AND Azure ARM Templates, like the ARM Template to Update an existing Windows Virtual Desktop hostpool
Some time ago, I wrote a blog about How to provision a Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) Host Pool with Service Principal in the case that MFA is enabled for (every) user/admin in the Azure environment and you cannot provision a Windows Virtual Desktop hostpool. And this was working fine when provisioning a new Windows Virtual Desktop host pool via the “Windows Virtual Desktop – Provision a host...
How to start OneDrive (and automatically sign-in) when using a RemoteApp in Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD)
Recently I had a use case where a customer uses Windows Virtual Desktop with RemoteApps, and files had to be opened and saved on the user’s OneDrive within these applications. Not a very exceptional situation if you ask me. I know that with some GPO settings / registry keys you can configure silent sign-in and Files on-demand (recommended within environments like Windows Virtual Desktop)...
Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) Host Pool deployment error – Subscription is not registered
Recently I was deploying a new Windows Virtual Desktop environment in a complete new Microsoft Azure tenant with a new Azure subscription. Although my user account has the right permissions in the Azure tenant, the WVD tenant and on the Azure Subscription, I still got a deployment error when provisioning a WVD Host pool.
Last week I was the guest in the “Talk Techie to me” podcast for the second time. “Talk Techie to me” is a monthly podcast presented by Jeroen Engelander and Madeleine van Rotten. Every month they discuss different topics with different guests and this time it was my turn to talk about Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). In this podcast we talk about what Windows Virtual Desktop is, the use cases we...