Forum Discussion

Adam2's avatar
Adam2
Copper Contributor
Nov 19, 2025

Can I connect a DELL Wyse 3040 Thin Client to an Azure Virtual Desktop WITHOUT WMS?

The organisation I work for has moved away from WYSE 3040s with an on-premise RDS farm. We now use laptops, docks and Microsoft 365/SharePoint the whole thing. Intune management too.

This is working fine but I have had "an idea".

I now have a box of some 30 old thin clients.

WYSE 3040 Thin OS 9.1.4234

Can I use a WYSE 3040 to connect straight to an Azure Virtual Desktop?

Reason: We have some volunteer staff who come in to the office for just 2-3 hours one day a week.

They do basic processing of physical paper forms, updating spreadsheets, entering invoice details etc etc, boring but essential tasks. They dont need anything fancy.

BUT ... We (a charity) cant afford to buy them a laptop for 2-3 hours a week.

So I have set up an AVD successfully, hoorah for me. I can access the AVD no problem using the Windows App on a Windows laptop or on a Mac device.

Can I point a WYSE device straight at the AVD WITHOUT using Wyse Management Suite? The old WMS is on the local server which will be decommissioned. I dont want to use that.

When I do a factory reset on a WYSE and go to configure Windows Virtual Desktop it does not seem to do anything. It does prompt me for MFA and does show our tenant welcome page background image so it is doing "something"

Has anyone done this successfully?

azure
Azure Essentials
networking

3 Replies

  • jaqsicoder's avatar
    jaqsicoder
    Tin Contributor
    Jun 30, 2026

    This is a great way to repurpose older hardware. As long as the ThinOS version supports Azure Virtual Desktop, manual configuration without WMS should work, though updating to the latest firmware and testing with a single device first is definitely the safest approach.

  • Jamony's avatar
    Jamony
    MCT
    Jun 29, 2026

    WMS is not an Azure requirement, but the thin client OS must support an Azure Virtual Desktop or Remote Desktop client that can subscribe to the AVD workspace feed. For a single test device, check whether your ThinOS version has AVD support and manual broker/workspace configuration. If not, the fallback is the AVD web client, assuming the device browser supports it.

  • Kidd_Ip's avatar
    Kidd_Ip
    MVP
    Nov 20, 2025

    I believe yes, Dell Wyse 3040 running ThinOS 9.1 can connect directly to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) without Wyse Management Suite (WMS), but it requires manual configuration and has some limitations. WMS is not strictly required that the device can be configured locally, but ThinOS support for AVD is still evolving. 

     

    •    Configure them manually with the AVD broker URL.
    •    Keep them on the latest ThinOS 9.1 firmware to avoid login loops.
    •    If you want to avoid WMS entirely, consider exporting/importing configuration files (INI/JSON) via USB to speed up setup across multiple devices.