Missing session hosts while creating new host pool in WVD

[bhushangawale]

We are using the GA version of the WVD and before it went GA, we created our staging environment with a single host pool and single session host (created from Win 10 Enterprise Multi-session marketplace image), published few remote apps and it worked fine. 

Fast forward, now after validating the system we want to take the system to production while still keeping staging host pool and session host as-is (intending to use it as validation environment).

So of course, we needed to build a golden image from the existing session host of staging environment and here is what we did

• Took a snapshot of staging session host virtual machine. 
• Created new managed disk using the snapshot as it's source. 
• Provisioned a new virtual machine using managed disk created in step above. 
• Logged on to the provisioned machine and uninstalled below components (there were multiple versions present so removed all of them) and restarted the machine.
• > Remote Desktop Agent Boot Loader
• > Remote Desktop Services Infrastructure Agent
• > Remote Desktop Services Infrastructure Geneva Agent
• > Remote Desktop Services SXS Network Stack
• After uninstalling these components, Syspreped the virtual machine (generalize and shutdown)
• Captured it from portal and saved the image as golden-image. 

Now once the image is prepared, went straight to creation of the new WVD host pool with 2 virtual machines, entered all relevant details and pointed it to use the golden image above.

The deployment was successful and can see host pool got created and the virtual machines are created and are in running state, however when we browse to the Host Pool > Session Hosts - we simply do not see those virtual machines there and it shows the the Session Host count as 0.

Can anyone point out what went wrong or if we missed anything or is it some bug associated with the portal?

Note: Tried RDP'ing to both virtual machines and we do not see any RDS components (listed above) installed again on it and I think since those were not installed during the provisioning, they are not registered with the host pool, however the question remains, what prevented Azure from installing those components while provisioning and get these virtual machines registered with the host pool?

@Pavithra Thiruvengadam any pointer on this will be of a huge help! 

Thanks in advance!

[#2]

@bhushangawale Could you check the info in this troubleshooting page - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/troubleshoot-vm-configuration

For the reg key, you would need to navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\RDAgent

[#3]

 If the troubleshooting doesnt help, I would suggest opening a support case.

[#4]

@bhushangawale 

I got the same problem. I solved it by creating a new image from a VM  (created from Win 10 Enterprise Multi-session marketplace image),created outside the Host Pool.

[#5]

@bhushangawale did you managed to fix this issue?

[#6]

I am equally having the same problem too.

[#7]

I remember that if you have the agent already available in the image, it causes a problem. Hence we specifically ask customers not to create a VM from a VM that is already registered to a host pool.

[#8]

@Pavithra Thiruvengadam 
Note: issue was still seen even after un-installing all available agents, creating a new image from scratch every time is not a convenient workaround.

what you have proposed - Is it a temporary workaround for now or a final solution? Just checking if PG is aware of it and fix for it is on the way in future?

[#9]

But we tried using the default image and still getting the problem.

[#10]

@OriakuO Can you please describe what steps you took? Have you tried manually installing the agent? By default image do you mean you used a gallery image and VMs were not joined to the host pool?

@bhushangawale Are you saying that when you created the VMs, you created them in the Azure Portal and the agent did not get installed on them? The easiest work around would be to install the bootloader and agent from here for Win10 VMs and steps 13-14 here for Win7 VMs. 

Related to Pavithra's point, we have clearly documented here that you cannot have the agent installed in the image and that it must be done afterward. 

[#11]

@Seneca_Friend would be great if you can go through the original post where I already described the issue at length with all steps.

[#12]

@CaronM thanks!  this fixed it for us!