Deploy Additional apps (e.g.: NotePad++ & FSLogic)

Deleted
Not applicable

Hi All,

 

So after much consternation, we managed to spin up 20x VDI instances.  If I'm being honest - I rather like it even in it's present 1/4 baked condition.  I see a lot of promise in ease of administration.  

 

However, with that said, I'm frustrated with trying to deploy applications to the VDI/WVD VMs.  I cannot get a remote PS session to work nor does the "Invoke-AzVMRunCommand" seem to work.  I've used Azure portal "EnableRemotePS". It reports "success" )or "Already exists"); however, it still does not allow connections.  

 

Is there a guide or some document somewhere on how to deploy applications to these machines?  I'm anxious to start use case testing … but just having Office doesn't accomplish that.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

PS: As a side note, there seems to be an issue with these VMs updating in DNS (AAD DS) …. but I cannot access them via DNS/FQDN or IP so that doesn't seem to be the issue.

5 Replies

@Deleted : Thanks for testing so far! In terms of adding applications, we generally see customers create a VM from the base image, install the additional applications and set registries/policies, capture the VM, then create a new pool out of the image, such as directed from here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/set-up-customize-master-image .

To be redeployed from the same Azure Marketplace offering or templates, it can be saved as either a Managed image or as a vhd in blob storage. However, either way you must sysprep the image.

 

Hopefully this helps!

@Christian_Montoya Thank you for getting stuck having to answer all these past posts.  Hopefully MS will treat you well on your next "Connect"... or whatever they call it these days. ;)

 

Deploying the pool was something of a nightmare so not anxious to start again.... Is it safe to assume that the guidance in the future will be to re-deploy pools as new software or updates to existing installs need to occur?  Also, will - or better yet - is it possible to use DSC to deploy new titles?

 

If I'm being honest, I don't mind re-deploying images as needed for a pool (aka: none-persistent); however, this presents a serious issue in the case of persistent desktops (which although the option is available deploying from market place exists, it doesn't actually set it that way.) 

 

Thanks again and having someone from MS on this site is EXTREMELY appreciated!

 

Cheers! 

@Deleted : It mostly depends...if you have SCCM or other mechanisms to push apps and updates, you should be able to continue leveraging that to update the VMs, in either a pooled or personal host pool.

 

If you don't have something along SCCM but want to service a pooled environment, then yes, our guidance would be to re-deploy the image. We have a specific Update template just for that purpose, letting you delete the Azure VMs or simply de-allocate in case you need to fall back to them.

 

If you're trying to push updates to personal desktops...I don't believe we currently have a prescriptive solution without a SCCM (/equivalent).

@Christian_Montoya Fair enough.  Thank you.

 

I REALLY want to emphasize this:  Having someone available to reply with this guidance (even suggestions) saved me many more hours of frustratingly trying to get something to work.  Now we can focus on productive testing the use cases.

@Deleted : That is definitely a fair statement, and we are trying to more actively monitor these forums.