May 14 2020 11:15 AM
*Important:
The PowerShell cmdlets named in the article aren’t available yet. We’ll update this article when we publish the cmdlets.
The Fall 2019 release of Windows Virtual Desktop provided PowerShell cmdlets and REST APIs to create a service environment. It also created service objects. When we talk about "objects" in the service environment, we mean objects Windows Virtual Desktop creates, such as tenants, host pools, application groups, and session hosts.
The one drawback of the Fall 2019 version of Windows Virtual Desktop is that it isn't automatically Azure integrated. This means that objects you create with the Fall 2019 release aren't automatically managed by the Azure portal, as they aren't connected to your Azure subscription.
The Spring 2020 update marks a shift in the Windows Virtual Desktop service towards full Azure integration. This means that any objects created with the Spring 2020 update are automatically managed by the Azure portal. In the future, all service objects will be integrated with the Azure service and the customer's Azure account.
This article will explain why you should migrate to the latest update of Windows Virtual Desktop, and how to do it.
Why migrate?
Major updates can be inconvenient, especially ones you have to do manually, so let’s see why migration couldn’t be done automatically:
Let’s go through why migration to the Spring 2020 update is important. With the Spring 2020 update, you can:
Our team is committed to making the migration process as quick and easy as possible, so we’ve made sure your users can stay on their Windows Virtual Desktop sessions during the migration process.
Prepare for migration
Before you start the migration, make sure you have the following things:
Important:
Migration currently only creates service objects in the US geography. You can't migrate the objects to a different geography with the tools currently available. When the service supports creating objects in other geographies, follow the process in “Migrate to a new geography.”
Migrate using service-provided cmdlets
Migration will be done using the PowerShell cmdlets.
Copy mode copies all user assignments from Fall 2019 app groups to Spring 2020 app groups, leaving the existing user assignments as-is. Users will be able to see feeds for both versions on their clients. Move mode copies all user assignments from Fall 2019 app groups to Spring 2020 app groups, then deletes the existing user assignments on Fall 2019 release app groups. Users will only be able to see the feed from the Spring 2020 app groups on their clients. None mode doesn't change the user assignments. You have the option to assign users or user groups to app groups with the tools provided by the Spring 2020 update, such as the Azure portal, PowerShell cmdlets or API.
Note: You can choose to output the topology mapping between the two sets of resources, without performing the actual migration.
Once you've entered the information, wait about 15 minutes for the service objects to be created in the subscription and resource groups you specified. If you copied or moved user assignments, that will take some extra time for the assignments to complete.
Once authentication is done, you should have the following:
Note:
If you aren't ready to finalize the migration and want to wait until a later date to migrate your Fall 2019 service objects, run Revert-RdsHostPoolMigration and your newly created service objects will be deleted. Users will only see the feed for the Fall 2019 version in their clients. If you chose Move in step 1, you won’t be able to revert the user assignment, which means you’ll have to republish the app groups to users.
If you don't want to get rid of your Fall 2019 service objects, you can run Set-RdsHostPoolHidden instead. This will hide the Fall 2019 user feed and the Fall 2019 service objects instead of deleting them. This gives you the option of reverting later if you choose to but operate as if you have completed the migration.
Migrate to a new geography
To avoid or minimize downtime, register existing session hosts in small increments to the ARM-integrated host pool for the Spring 2020 update and slowly migrate users over to the new ARM-integrated app groups.
Continued support for Fall 2019 release
We'll continue supporting and maintaining the environment and tools for the Fall 2019 release for now. However, new features will only be added to the Spring 2020 update. To keep up with the latest Azure features in Windows Virtual Desktop, we recommend you migrate to the Spring 2020 update as soon as possible. If you have any feature suggestions, submit your idea along with your scenario on our UserVoice forum at https:///aka.ms/wvdfbk.
Aug 31 2020 07:52 PM
@Pavithra Thiruvengadam, thank you for your reply! We have a couple clients with the Fall 2019 Release and are having some problems with permissions and adding users to the hostpool. We have a support case open and the engineers are saying something is corrupted on the back end (because all our permissions are indeed correct on the front end). Because Fall 2019 will no longer be supported soon and because Spring 2020 is better, we want to migrate. Came across your article here, which states that it will be updated with powershell cmdlets to perform the migration.
I'm ok creating a new environment, but was hoping to migrate the WVDs themselves (well, one in particular) because of the user-specific settings on their own profiles (shortcuts, installed apps, various user-specific settings). If we provision a brand new WVD it will seem like a brand new computer to them. That is what I was hoping to avoid by migrating the WVD, if possible.
Sep 01 2020 10:46 AM
WVD classic (aka Fall 2019) will be supported for a while. No worries there.
VMs can be migrated from classic to ARM WVD - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/create-host-pools-powershell#update-the-agent
I am not sure how many VMs they want migrated, but this could work.
Oct 09 2020 11:13 AM
@Pavithra Thiruvengadam we are at risk of losing our existing personal desktops. also rejoining machines to the new host pool might need a redo of the agents
Jan 07 2021 05:54 AM
@Pavithra Thiruvengadam Any word on these cmdlets being finished?