Big Chris's Cloud PC Chronicles

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the capability in Azure Virtual Desktop where you can assign multiple personal desktops to a user in a host pool is now generally available! 

As we all knew, we could only assign one personal desktop per user in a host pool.  If users needed access to different personal desktops, they would have to be in different host pools, which meant more time management and more Azure resources available.  Now, with multiple personal desktop assignment, desktops can be assigned to a user in the same personal host pool.

As with everything, there are a few things to keep in mind when using this new capability.

• If your personal host pool is set to automatically assign a desktop to a user, you cannot use the multiple personal desktop assignment capability.
• Once you build a host pool enabled with multiple personal desktop assignment, it cannot be disabled.
• If you use multiple desktop assignments, give your session hosts friendly names so they can be easily identified by the user.
• If you are using FSLogix in the personal host pool, configure FSLogix to allow multiple connections.

You can configure a personal host pool with multiple personal desktops assignment when you build a new personal host pool or an existing host pool where the feature is not enabled yet.

Big Chris Recommends: Unless there is a need, just build a new host pool with this feature enabled.  Easier to manage and you can start off the bat with your session hosts having friendly names, ensure the session hosts are configured for the user’s needs, etc.

With that, here is how to configure multiple personal desktop assignments on an existing host pool.

• Browse to Azure Virtual Desktop in the Azure Portal.
• Select Host pools.
• Select the pool where you would like to enable multiple personal desktop assignment.
• Select Settings then Properties.
• The assignment type needs to be set to “Direct.”  If it is not you will need to select “Direct” then “Save” the change.
• Add a check to the checkbox for “Assign multiple desktops to a single user,” then “Save.”

Next thing would be to give your session host’s “friendly” names so the users can better distinguish the desktops assigned to them.  Right now, this can only be done with Azure Cloud Shell or local PowerShell.  The following script when run from Cloud Shell will add a friendly name to your named session host.

$parameters = @{

   HostPoolName = ‘HostPoolName’

   Name = ‘SessionHostName’

   ResourceGroupName = ‘ResourceGroupName’

   FriendlyName = ‘SessionHostFriendlyName’

}

Update-AzWvdSessionHost @parameters

In my example I have one session host a friendly name of “First Desktop” and another session host a friendly name of “Second Desktop.”

I assigned the two session hosts to one user, and this is how it looks in the Windows App.

I hope this new feature can help if you have users who need more than one personal desktop!  Till next time!