Windows Virtual Desktop

What is Windows Virtual Desktop?

Windows Virtual Desktop is a new service from Microsoft where you can offer a virtual workplace from the cloud (Azure). This can be a multi-user Windows 10, but Windows 7 (with extensive support) is also possible. In addition, it offers the possibility to virtualize Office 365 ProPlus. Windows Virtual Desktop is a scalable virtual machine deployment service powered by Azure Resources, Storage and advanced networking capabilities. The backend such as brokers, gateway, web access and diagnostics servers are hosted and managed by Azure.

Requirements

There are a few requirements to use Windows Virtual Desktop:

• Active Directory Domain Services
• An Azure tenant
• An Azure subscription with credits

The virtual machines you create must be domain joined or hybrid joined by default. Azure AD is not (yet) possible. Windows Virtual Desktop therefore depends on an Active Directory domain. The VMs eventually become members of this domain, and through AD Connect you log in with your Azure AD credentials. You simply have 3 options:

• Install Azure Active Directory Domain Services
• Instal a Server 2019 VM with the Active Directory Domain Services role
• Connecting your own Active Directory to the Azure tenant via a VPN

In this blog we choose option 2. We install a Server 2019 VM and install the ADDS role.

Request Azure tenant & subscription

In this blog we start from the ground up. So we'll show you how to build Windows Virtual Desktop from scratch. So we start by applying for a 30-day Azure trial with which you receive € 170,00 credit. This should be enough to set up a nice demo environment.

You can request your trial via this website: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/free/ 

Follow the steps to create the trial. You also need a credit card. No worries, this is purely for verification. No costs are invoiced. Because we need an internet routable domain name in the next step, we add it directly to our Azure AD Tenant. We will also use this domain name for our Active Directory domain name. This is not necessary, but ensures that we have a simpler domain name for our Azure AD users.

We use the domain name for this: addoptimization.lu

TIP: You can also use the standard extension tenantname.onmicrosoft.com. Your own domain is therefore optional.