Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop is now made available to the general public after an announcement made by a Blog Post today. The announcement was made by Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365, and Takeshi Numoto, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Azure.
Windows Virtual Desktop Available!
Windows Virtual Desktop is a service that provides Windows 10 virtualization, along with multi-session Windows 10 capabilities and support for Windows Server RDS desktop and applications.
Windows Virtual Desktop will allow virtualization of Windows 7 and 10, Office 365 ProPlus apps and other third-party applications by running them remotely in Azure virtual machines which will benefit the enterprises that use these sort of services on a day to day basis.
Microsoft is also allowing virtualization of Windows 7 desktops which will be having free Extended Security Updates till January 2023. It means customers who have a license and purchase WVD will get security patches for Windows 7. This will mostly be used by customers who are using Windows 7 Legacy Applications.
The preview of Windows Virtual Desktop was made back in September 2018 and was brought to public preview on March 2019. Now the service is ready and will be available on iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and HTML5.
Anderson quoted that if a customer wants a multi-session Windows 10 environment in the cloud, Windows Virtual Desktop is the only way to go because that is the only way to get a license to do so.
Microsoft is making Windows Virtual Desktop available directly, as well as through its Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and various partners, such as Citrix and VMware. At its Ignite conference in early November, Microsoft will be talking up storage solutions from partners that are tailored for Windows Virtual Desktop.
Enterprises can access Windows 10 Enterprise and Windows 7 Enterprise on Windows Virtual Desktop at no additional licensing cost if they have an eligible Windows 10 Enterprise or Microsoft 365 license but the Azure resources they use will cost them money.