(Azure) Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool now available
Optimizing images has always been an important component of preparing images as part of a traditional Remote Desktop Services (RDS) infrastructure or virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). Optimizing session hosts, in particular, can increase user density and eventually lower costs. With the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool, you can optimize your Windows 10, version 2004 multi- and single-session deployments in Windows Virtual Desktop. Note: The information in this post is community-driven; nothing has yet been officially launched by the Windows Virtual Desktop product team. Credit goes to Robert M. Smith and Tim Muessig from Microsoft, previously known as the VDIGuys, for creating this tool and make it available for free for the community. Windows 10 multi-session image name change As noted in recent announcements, Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 apps for Enterprise. With this name change, we have updated the Windows Virtual Desktop image names in Azure Marketplace. As a result, when you are looking for an image in the Azure Marketplace image gallery, you should begin by selecting Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, version 2004 + Microsoft 365 Apps – Gen1 as your baseline image. How the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool works The (Windows) Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool disables services in the operating system that you most likely won’t need for your Windows Virtual Desktop session host. To make sure that your line-of-business (LOB) applications continue running as they should, there are some preliminary steps that should first performed. Note: There are settings default disabled when you run the scrip out of the box such as AppX Packages for the Windows Calculator. We strongly suggest analyzing the tool via the JSON files that include the default settings. This also gives you the opportunity to enable them before running the tool so they remain untouched. I'll explain more about this later on in the article. The full list of enhancements for native Windows services will be available soon. Bookmark Run and tune your Remote Desktop Services environment for the latest updates. Expected performance gains Windows Virtual Desktop value-added services provider and Microsoft partner LoginVSI performed early tests with the Virtual Desktop Optimization Too and gained over 100 users in their internal benchmarking lab environment with a Windows 10, version 2004 single session. We, therefore, assume that this gain will also be possible with Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session. VSImax asserts a maximum number of users that are able to log on to the virtual desktop hosts pool as part of the underlying infrastructure. That number is the "sweet spot" as going over that number will decrease performance for all users. (Thanks to LoginVSI for sharing these results with us.) Note: We recommend you use simulation tools to test your deployment using both stress tests and real-life usage simulations to ensure that your system is responsive and resilient enough to meet user needs Remember to vary the load size to avoid surprises. Desktops in the Cloud on Performance Optimizations for Windows Virtual Desktop with Robert and Tim (aka VDI Guys) We recently had the creators of the Virtual Desktop Optimization tool as guests on our Desktops in the Cloud video-podcast. Robert and Tim explained everything you should know, as well as best practices and lessons learned. A must watch in extension to this article. Watch it below. How to use the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool The Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool makes it possible to disable uncommon services for virtual desktop environments, such as Windows Virtual Desktop. Note: We recommend that you run the script after the Sysprep (System Preparation) process, most likely as startup script w with a large set of virtual machines. This is due to the AppX Packages that conflict and most likely the sysprep will fail. Download all scripts from the Virtual-Desktop-Optimization-Tool GitHub repository. Select Clone or download, followed by Download ZIP. Unzip the folder to your Windows Virtual Desktop session host(s) to a specified folder (e.g. C:\Optimize or C:\Temp). Note: You could also run the scripts as part of your image management procedure e.g. Azure image Builder (AIB) or Azure DevOps. Important information before running the tool There are settings default disabled when you run the scrip out of the box such as AppX Packages for the Windows Calculator. We strongly suggest analyzing the tool via the JSON files that include the default settings. This also gives you the opportunity to enable them before running the tool so they remain untouched. You can find the JSON file in the Windows built number folder, under ConfigurationFiles - e.g. C:\Optimize\2004\ConfigurationFiles. You've to put the settings to Enabled - that you want to keep as default. Below is the example file for AppX Packages, there are JSON files for Services and scheduled tasks as well. Another option is to remove the while entry out of the JSON file. AppxPackages.json - Example Windows Calculator App { "AppxPackage": "Microsoft.WindowsCalculator", "VDIState": "Enabled", "URL": "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/windows-calculator/9wzdncrfhvn5", "Description": "Microsoft Calculator app" }, Services.json - example Windows Update Service { "Name": "UsoSvc", "VDIState": "Enabled", "Description": "Update Orchestrator service, manages Windows Updates. If stopped, your devices will not be able to download and install the latest updates." }, Prepare to launch Windows PowerShell and select Run as Administrator. In PowerShell, change the directory to the folder to which you downloaded the scripts, e.g. C:\Optimize or your own specific folder. Run the following command: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass Run the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool using the following command: .\Win10_VirtualDesktop_Optimize.ps1 -WindowsVersion 2004 -Verbose Note: When you use a different version of Windows 10, you must change the WindowsVersion parameter. Version 1803 and later are supported for Windows 10 Enterprise. Windows 10 multi-session support is only available with Windows 10, version 2004 and later. Select Yes when prompted to reboot the session hosts(s). Start your Windows Virtual Desktop session. As you can see in the Task Manager comparison below, the number of threads and handles has decreased noticeably after running the Virtual Desktop Optimization Tool. Do you have any problems with orphaned Start Menu shortcuts after running the tool? Have the user open Task Manager, then end the following two processes: ShellExperienceHost.exe StartMenuExperienceHost.exe Have them check the Start Menu and they should be gone. Happy optimizing! 🙂 Let us know your feedback on the tool in the comment section below. Prefer to watch and learn? There’s also a video on Azure Academy available later this week by Dean Cefola. You can find it here.
Error Loading Extension and Definition in Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Deployment
I recently created a new Windows Azure trial account and have a problem deploying Windows Virtual Desktop. Each time I try to create a new host pool it will prompt me with the ErrorLoadingExtensionAndDefinition reason code. I have contacted Azure technical support and they suggested that I post this on the forum for assistance as this error has also impacted multiple customers. Here's the full error summary. Hope someone can help me find a workaround so that I can deploy Windows Virtual Desktop. { "shellProps": { "sessionId": "56c957f1339a4fd6af1852baf5372040", "extName": "Microsoft_Azure_WVD", "contentName": "HostpoolBlade" }, "error": { "message": "Error displaying your content", "summaryItems": [ { "label": "Error reason", "value": "ErrorLoadingExtensionAndDefinition" } ], "details": "message: Cannot read property 'id' of undefined\r\nstack: ###_RPC_Exception_###\nTypeError: Cannot read property 'id' of undefined\n at s.n (https://afd.hosting.portal.azure.net/wvd/Content/Dynamic/1SU8pbC3yA_O.js:2:577)\n at new s (https://afd.hosting.portal.azure.net/wvd/Content/Dynamic/_HZUxDO8R410.js:9:813)\n at y (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:7:3477)\n at https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:7:3651\n at t._dispatch (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:7:5396)\n at t._get (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:7:3216)\n at t.get (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:7:1856)\n at new t (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:68:5620)\n at https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/_XNBddeW-0ED.js:84:2425\n at o (https://portal.azure.com/Content/Dynamic/P8kXagqyUZue.js:4:72)\r\nFrom RPC: fx -> Microsoft_Azure_WVD (MsPortalFx.Internal.Constants.RpcMethods.tryEarlyGetViewModel)\r\n(Callstack capturing is not enabled. Use ?trace=diagnostics to enable it.)\r\n", "code": null }}
Windows Virtual Desktop shutdown for inactivity
We are using WVD with single provisioned host pools and single user images. This was by design. We can set auto shutdown for each desktop but we would really like to have the WVD autoshutdown after a period of inactivity and then be deallocated. Is there a solution that can do this? or is Microsoft working on this?Announcing public preview of RDP Shortpath transport for Windows Virtual Desktop
As we promised during the Microsoft Ignite conference, we are introducing a new capability that can take into account the type of network you are connecting from, and when possible, establish a direct peer-to-peer UDP transport rather than using the Windows Virtual Desktop gateways. For a starter, I would like to remind you that Windows Virtual Desktop uses Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to provide remote display and input capabilities over network connections. RDP has initially released 22 years ago with Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition and was continuously evolving with every Microsoft Windows and Windows Server release. From the beginning, RDP developed to be independent of its underlying transport stack, and today it supports multiple types of transport. It could be a Hyper-V bus transport for managing VMs using the Enhanced Session Mode or TCP-based transport in Quick Assist, or combined TCP/UDP transport for on-premises deployments. When we designed Windows Virtual Desktop, we built an entirely new transport called Reverse Connect. Reverse connect transport is used both for establishing the remote session and for carrying RDP traffic. Unlike the on-premises RDS deployments, reverse connect transport doesn't use an inbound TCP listener to receive incoming RDP connections. Instead, it is using outbound connectivity to the Windows Virtual Desktop infrastructure over the HTTPS connection. This gives a secure and simple way to implement connectivity for your remote desktops. For the details about reverse connect, see a brand new topic in Windows Virtual Desktop documentation. While reverse connect gives a secure and reliable way of communicating with desktop, it is based on TCP protocol, and its performance is heavily dependent on the network latency. It also inherits other drawbacks from TCP, such as slow start, congestion control, and others. Introducing RDP Shortpath RDP Shortpath is a family of UDP-based transports that extend Windows Virtual Desktop connectivity options. Key benefits of Shortpath are: RDP Shortpath transport is based on top of a highly efficient Universal Rate Control Protocol (URCP). URCP enhances UDP with active monitoring of the network conditions and provides fair and full link utilization. URCP operates at low delay and loss levels as needed by Remote Desktop. URCP achieves the best performance by dynamically learning network parameters and providing protocol with a rate control mechanism. RDP Shortpath establishes the direct connectivity between Remote Desktop client and Session Host. Direct connectivity reduces the dependency on the Windows Virtual Desktop gateways, improves the connection's reliability, and increases the bandwidth available for each user session. The removal of additional relay reduces the round-trip time, which improves user experience with latency-sensitive applications and input methods. RDP Shortpath brings support for configuring Quality of Service (QoS) priority for RDP connections through a Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) marks RDP Shortpath transport allows limiting outbound network traffic by specifying a throttle rate for each session. Sounds good? Then try it yourself by following the detailed documentation. Feedback We'd like to hear from you about your experiences with this public preview! For questions, requests, comments, and other feedback about RDP Shortpath, please use this feedback form. Don't hesitate to post feature suggestions on: https://aka.ms/wvdfbk Next steps Learn more in the brand-new networking section of Windows Virtual Desktop documentation : Understanding Windows Virtual Desktop network connectivity Windows Virtual Desktop RDP Shortpath Implement Quality of Service (QoS) for Windows Virtual Desktop Remote Desktop Protocol bandwidth requirementsAnnouncements at Windows Virtual Desktop Master Class
Windows Virtual Desktop Master Class is a virtual event where Windows Virtual Desktop experts from Microsoft as well as members of our community come together to share tips and best practices for deploying and scaling virtual desktops and remote applications on Azure. We are making several exciting announcements at the event: Promotion for new customers through March 31, 2021 - New customers save 30% on Windows Virtual Desktop computing costs for D-series and Bs-series virtual machines for up to 90 days. You can learn more about the offer here. Skilling - We are announcing a new Windows Virtual Desktop Specialty certification for professionals planning, delivering, and managing virtual desktop experiences and remote apps on Azure. The related Exam AZ-140: Configuring and operating Windows Virtual Desktop on Microsoft Azure will be available soon in beta version. If you are looking for a certified partner to help with you deployment, you can continue to leverage the advanced specialization program which complements the Azure MSP program. Product announcements – The features that we had pre-announced at Microsoft Ignite in September are now in public preview: Azure Monitor for Windows Virtual Desktop -Provides a centralized view with all the monitoring telemetry and visualizations you need to debug and troubleshoot issues. Learn More MSIX app attach in the Azure portal - MSIX app attach is an application delivery solution that allows you to dynamically attach an application in MSIX format to a user session. Previously, you had to use PowerShell scripts, but now the MSIX app attach capability is available in public preview in the Azure portal and is integrated with Azure Resource Manager. Learn More. Screen capture protection – Disables screen capture for your remote apps and desktop on all the supported Windows Virtual Desktop clients RDP short path – Establishes a direct peer-to-peer UDP connection to the session host rather than over the internal Windows Virtual Desktop gateways taking into account the type of network from which you are connecting. This provides a secure experience with less connection latency and better performance. Learn More Microsoft Defender for Endpoint integration (Generally Available) – With this integration, you get the full investigation experience you have with Windows 10 machines, now for Windows Virtual Desktop VMs. If you are using Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint will support up to 50 concurrent user connections – so you get the cost savings of Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session and the confidence of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. Learn More For a deep dive into these announcements and to learn more about security, cost optimization, and other topics, tune into the Windows Virtual Desktop Master Class!
WVD - Intune Auto enrolment for AAD only organisation
Hi All, been going round in circles... since we are completely Azure AD organisation, been told that we cannot do Intune Auto-enrolment for our WVD devices? Been pointed to articles that devices need to be hybrid AAD joined and since we don't have on-prem AD its not possible. Any thoughts on how we can achieve Intune Auto-enrolment pls?Azure Virtual Desktop: The flexible cloud VDI platform for the hybrid workplace
When we launched Windows Virtual Desktop nearly two years ago, no one predicted a global pandemic would force millions of workers to leave the office and work from home. Organizations around the world migrated important apps and data to the cloud to gain business resilience and agility. And to support the newly remote workforce, many of you turned to Windows Virtual Desktop to give remote users a secure, easy to manage, productive personal computing experience with Windows 10 from the cloud. It has been humbling to work alongside you as you pivoted your operations to meet new challenges – from supporting frontline healthcare workers at NHS to engineers at Petrofac to educators and students. Going forward, organizations will need to support an evolving set of remote and hybrid work scenarios. To help our customers and partners meet these new hybrid work demands, we are expanding our vision to become a flexible cloud VDI platform for nearly any use case – accessible from virtually anywhere. A modern VDI platform needs to be secure, scalable, and easy to manage, while delivering a seamless, high-performance experience to end users. It should also empower organizations with the flexibility to customize and build solutions with its core technology. To support this broader vision and the changing needs of our customers, today we are announcing new capabilities, new pricing for app streaming, and changing the name of the Windows Virtual Desktop service to Azure Virtual Desktop. New platform capabilities for security and management We are continually adding new capabilities to the core Azure Virtual Desktop platform. Today we are also pleased to announce the public preview of new features that will help you onboard and better manage your Azure Virtual Desktop deployment. Enhanced support for Azure Active Directory (coming soon in public preview): Azure Active Directory is a critical service used by organizations around the world to manage user access to important apps and data and maintain strong security controls. We are pleased to announce that you’ll soon be able to join your Azure Virtual Desktop virtual machines directly to Azure Active Directory (AAD) and connect to the virtual machine from any device with basic credentials. You’ll also be able to automatically enroll the virtual machines with Microsoft Endpoint Manager. For certain scenarios, this will help eliminate the need for a domain controller, help reduce cost, and streamline your deployment. While this is a major milestone, it’s just the beginning of the journey towards full integration with Azure Active Directory. We will continue adding new capabilities such as support for single sign-on, additional credential types like FIDO2, and Azure Files for cloud users. Manage Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session VMs with Microsoft Endpoint Manager (available now in public preview) - Microsoft Endpoint Manager allows you to manage policies and distribute applications across devices. You can now enroll Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session Azure Virtual Desktop virtual machines in Microsoft Endpoint Manager and manage them in the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center the same way you manage shared physical devices. This simplifies management and provides a centralized view across both physical devices and virtual desktops. Read the Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session documentation to learn more. Deploy in minutes with new Quickstart experience (coming soon in public preview): We are pleased to offer a streamlined onboarding experience for Azure Virtual Desktop in the Azure portal. This new experience will validate requirements, kick off an automated deployment, and will also implement best practices. With only a few clicks, you can set up a full Azure Virtual Desktop environment in your Azure subscription. You will find this new experience under “Quickstart” in the Azure Virtual Desktop blade in the Azure portal. New pricing option for remote app streaming Many organizations are using Azure Virtual Desktop to stream apps to their own employees who are covered by existing license entitlements. But many organizations also want to use Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver applications “as-a-service” to customers and business partners as well. Today we are pleased to announce a monthly per-user access pricing option for organizations to use Azure Virtual Desktop to deliver apps from the cloud to external (non-employee) users. For example, this would enable software vendors to deliver their app as a SaaS solution that can be accessed by their customers. In addition to the monthly user price for Azure Virtual Desktop, organizations also pay for Azure infrastructure services based on usage. Here's what one ISV had to say about the new pricing option: “Sage is trusted by millions of customers worldwide to deliver innovative business solutions to manage finances, operations and people. Streaming applications with Azure Virtual Desktop makes it easy to streamline user access to our solutions on the Azure cloud for a great online customer experience.” James Westlake, Director of Product Management, Sage Try it during our promotional period The new per-user access pricing option will be effective on January 1, 2022. To help organizations get started now, we are pleased to offer a special promotion with no charge to access Azure Virtual Desktop for streaming first-party or third-party applications to external users. This promotion is effective from July 14, 2021 to December 31, 2021. Pricing for monthly user access rights effective on January 1, 2022 will be: $5.50 per user per month (Apps) $10 per user per month (Apps + Desktops) This promotion only applies to external user access rights. Organizations would continue to pay for the underlying Azure infrastructure. Organizations should continue to use existing Windows license entitlements, such as Microsoft 365 E3 or Windows E3 and higher, for app streaming to their employees. Visit our web page for more details. Expanding partner ecosystem As a cloud VDI platform, we work closely with our partners and empower them to build solutions that meet your needs. For example, Citrix and VMware provide desktop and app virtualization solutions that leverage the Azure Virtual Desktop platform capabilities, such as Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, and allow you to maximize your existing investments and use the tools and solutions with which you are already familiar. We are also proud of our ecosystem of hundreds of partners who build custom solutions and provide technical consulting to help you deploy with confidence. Visit Azure Marketplace for more information on partner solutions, and Advanced Specialization page for certified deployment partners. Getting started My team and I look forward to partnering with you to take full advantage of our flexible VDI platform in the cloud and unlock new end user computing possibilities. We appreciate your ongoing support and welcome your feedback. Join us on our Tech Community to connect with my team and other customers and partners to share your feedback and suggestions. To learn more about these announcements, please sign up for our upcoming webinar.
WVD Remote app Recent files not populated
Hey All, I've setup WVD and am using Remote App rather than the full desktop experience. All is working very well with the exception of one annoying issue: Recent files aka Windows 10 Jump Lists, don't populate when using remote apps. I have file explorer and individual apps published and when say opening a pdf, or non Office document, they won't show up in the recent files list in other apps (like Outlook for example). I've moved the user to full desktop experience and it works fine, move them back to remote app and the old ones from his full desktop session exist, but no new documents/shortcuts appear in %appdata%/microsoft/windows/recent I feel like this is probably a bug with how the api auto generates shorcuts in the recent folder. MS can you confirm this is a shortfall for WVD Remote Apps? Any chance there is a fix in the works?Custom Template for WVD - "Add computer to AD Group" upon joining the domain
Hello All, We have a tricky scenario with our WVD deployments wrt GPO's that are being applied to session hosts upon joining the domain and OU. We deployed a DNS Server in Azure with Conditional forwarders for our ON-Prem Domain and a forwarder for Public DNS and configured this Azure hosted DNS IP on our WVD-VNet. This ensures that all domain requests and internet access in handled locally by this Az-hosted DNS server. However, the GPO with DNS Settings - updates the VNet inherited DNS IP to On-Prem DNS server on WVD SessionHosts once they are joined to domain in a specific OU. The On-prem DNS server doesn't resolve any WVD URL's due to security policies in place. This is blocking WVD Agent from updating to 1.0.2990.1500 version (not sure why the previous version - 1.0.2800.2800 is first chosen and upgraded to latest) and getting stuck as On-prem DNS / FW doesn't allow any internet traffic. Now we got further info from our AD team. A scheduled script is executed that adds the computers added to our WVD-OU to a unique WVD-Computer group on which DNS-GPO is disabled/not applied. The issue here is, once the machine is added to domain-OU and reboot is done, by the time script is executed to add these computers to WVD-computer group, DNS policy is getting applied and machines are assigned with On-Prem DNS IP's. Even is the script is run and session host is added to WVD-group, a gpupdate isn't reverting the DNS on session hosts. We are being forced to manully update the adapter settings / change the nic in portal to make the sessionhost use Azure hosted VM --> complete upgrade process --> become healthy/available. Seeking few solutions here 1) to get a custom template (if any) to add the computers to WVD-group directly while joining the domain 2) any workaround/automation to update VM nic Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, PK
