Recent Discussions
Understanding Azure Account, Subscription and Directory.
For the last couple of days, I am trying to understand the relationship between Azure account, Subscription, and Directory and Resource Groups. Is there any comprehensive guide that can help me to understand how Azure Account, Subscription and Directory works? Thank you in advance.
Sign in to Azure DevOps
The https://dev.azure.com URL redirects to the landing page for the Azure DevOps product. I used to promote this as an URL to use to login to the product. Since this year the page is missing the "Already have an account? Sing in to Azure DevOps" link. As far as I can see there is no way to login to Azure DevOps trough this interface now. There is the usual "sing in" in the top right, which will redirect you to the azure portal (or at least for me it does). How are we supposed to login to Azure DevOps? Old login:
Disable "Windows Hello"
I am an admin, and attempting to disable "Windows Hello for Business" also referred to as 2-step authentication. From what I gather, this option is set as "disabled" by default. I confirmed this. However Whenever I join a device to Azure AD, it is always prompted with "Windows Hello" and to create a pin. Where can I find the option that allows me to disable this?
MFA without a Cellphone
This is becoming a bigger issue more and more. We cannot, as a company, require our Employees to use a personal cellphone to get text codes or install work apps to authenticate our work accounts. We supply these users with a Business Voice license so they can make business calls and accept business calls. All of our employees have corporately paid laptops running Windows 10 and all have SharePoint, Email, OneDrive, Teams etc. Microsoft does not offer the authenticator app on Windows 10 so we can't use that method. So what do we do? Leave all these accounts vulnerable? I've read about using "landlines" for authentication then Microsoft says that's not secure but then provides no guidance on exactly how we're supposed to do this. We cannot be expected to pay for a cellphone for all these users just to use one app. That's ridiculous.
I cannot connect to Virtual Desktop. i get an error that no resources available to connect to
Thank you for taking a look at my issue. I am new to Azure and we are trying a proof of concept for a deployment using Virtual Desktop. I have been following the guide here and I have had a few stumbling points along the way. http://www.rebeladmin.com/2019/04/step-step-guide-azure-windows-virtual-desktop-preview/ Currently I have everything seemingly in place. The active directory server is up and working. The Virtual Desktop test machine was deployed. I can RDP into the domain controller and then RDP into the Windows 10 machine so I know the VM was created and running. I cannot use the web interface to get a session. I can log into the web interface and see an icon to start a session but when it tries to open up I get a message stating " We couldn't connect because there are currently no available resources. Try again later or if this keeps happening, ask your admin or tech support for help" As mentioned before, I am new to Azure and I am stumbling through this but I have hit a point where troubleshooting is circular and not getting me anywhere.Connection was denied because the user account is not authorised for remote log in
Hi experts, ... there was a restart of the server that is running as VM in azure... and since then, I've been experiencing some issues that are seriously affecting the company. When I want to RDP with a required account (lets call it "azvmuser") to the server, I get the message that I'm not authorized. With Administrator account, I can connect with no issues... The only way I could fix it was by adding the "azvmuser" via "User Accounts" -> "Give other users access to this computer" .... This works for a while however at some point the issue returns and when I check the Users Accounts again, the "azvmuser" is missing there again and have to add it again... There is a task created in "Task Scheduler" that runs for that user and due to the issue above, the task is failing... When I add the user to "Give other users access...", the Task runs fine... Any idea how to fix it? ... for now, I just manually check the VM and add the user "azvmuser" when I get the error message... It is happening for a business critical VM..... other 3 VMs we have in Azure are working fine 😕
AppReadiness Service and Black Screen
The whole Appreadiness service and black screen issue has been floating around for a couple of years now, but it's now raised its head again in WVD, at least where we're using FSLogix. We have two WVD setups, one with FSLogix and one with no profile solution. On the FSLogix one we're consistently getting black screens at login (although Ctrl+Alt+End works and you can run, say, notepad from Task Manager) but it eventually comes to life after five minutes. In the event viewer the following error is associated with each black screen: "A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the AppReadiness service." Standard multi-user Windows 10 enterprise from the markteplace with is 1903 (although Windows itself is offering 1909 as an upgrade which I'm guessing is WVD supported, but I've not seen anything confirming this). Anyone else seen this or got a solution?(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.
Microsoft Print to PDF not working, nor any third-party PDF printer
Microsoft Print to PDF or any other third-party Print to PDF printers are not working for us. It looks like this is related to a bug in one of the latest security updates for Windows. Have anybody found a solution or workaround? Thanks!Revert to Azure Managed Disk snapshot on Azure VM
Hi All, Looking for some assistance in reverting a Managed disk snapshot to an OS disk of the VM. Idealy i would like to do the following: 1. Detach existing OS managed disk from VM 2. Convert the snapshot to a managed disk 3. Attach new managed disk to VM I'm struggling at point 1. The Remove-AzureRMDisk cmdlet doesnt like the fact its currently attached. The current way im achieving this is by deleting / recreating the VM with the new disk. Seems to work well but is getting complicated when more services are setup against this VM. Any suggestions?
Error when connecting to MVD - 0x3000047
I have recently deployed WVD thanks to the current global crisis. It is working well for most of our users, apart from one. When she tries to connect to WVD via the web client, she gets this: When connecting via the Windows client, she gets this: As far as I know, she is the only member of staff who gets this. She's using Windows 10 Home on a laptop, has tried multiple browsers and is using a DSL ISP (Sky in this instance). I've tried running "Get-RdsDiagnosticActivities" but it comes back with "There were no activities found" Any ideas? Thanks, IanWVD logon issues. The Group Policy Client Service failed the sign-in. Access is denied.
Hi. We have a mutli-session Win10 WVD farm up and running. We are running 1909 with the latest quality updates applied. FSLogix profile container is being used. We are seeing intermittent issues with users not being able to login. They are being presented with the error: "The Group Policy Client Service failed the sign-in. Access is denied" From investigation, cant see anything appropriate in the event logs. Anyone seen this issue before?
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