Use Custom Image Templates in Azure Virtual Desktop and never patch session hosts again?

[@PetterTech]

What do you think about this service? Is it better than manually creating images? Better than Azure Image Builder? Or do you prefer the more hands-on approach to imaging?

[@ronjat8]

Akkuratt videoen jeg trengte! Har fagprøve snart og tenker å ha om AVD, så kom jeg over kanalen din og det passet jo bare helt perfekt! Så videoen du la ut for 1 år siden om AVD og det hjalp meg veldig med å forstå og motiverte meg også til å lære mer. Setter stor pris på kanalen din :) Takk!

[@PetterTech]

Godt å høre at innholdet mitt kan hjelpe! Masse lykke til på fagprøven 👍

[@fbifido2]

I now know how to upgrade the Azure VM image from 21H2 to 22H2/23H2/24H2. ans: just mount the new Windows 22H2/23H2/24H2 iso inside the VM and at the command prompt go to that mounted drive and type: setup.exe /product server

[@matthewsmith741]

Thanks for this video. It's been very helpful, but could you add a short section @23:50 or follow-up video where you install PowerShell with all resources contained in a storage account within the same resource group? My use case requires assets be within my own subscription, but I can't find any examples of this on-line.

[@PetterTech]

Interesting scenario, is it enough to have all resources in the same subscription or is there also a requirement to be accessing things through private networks? Because it could be as simple as deploying a storage account and placing the scripts there with public access enabled. But if it should also be accessed through private networks then you would need a private endpoint for the storage account that is accessible from the vnet used to build the image

[@CFPANDRADE]

this is great content; I'm subscribed, but I would like to see those videos in 4k resolution as there is a lot of text and is hard to read

[@PetterTech]

Thanks for the feedback! Future videos will be in 4K, though upscaled in the beginning

[@jackasnacks]

If you continuously tear down and stand up the session hosts each month, is that also going to remove all user generated data alongside it? In my case, we would need user data to be persistent throughout versioning of the hosts. Assuming this would only work with something like FSlogix to reattach your data back to the new session host?

[@PetterTech]

That is correct. Have some form of central storage for user profiles, e.g. Azure Files, and use FSLogix to connect to them. And avoid storing data locally on the session hosts or in user profiles

[@fbifido2]

@24:27 - at this point how does one install a LOB application and configure it?

[@PetterTech]

You would write a script to do it and then add that script using the "Add you own script" button. Like I did with installing PowerShell

[@techxpert365]

looks great and thanks for this video. can we update the existing session hosts without adding the new session hosts?

[@PetterTech]

Unfortunately no, the images you create is not something you can use outside of deploying new hosts

[@Don.vico.888]

How would you manage 3rd party updates? Would you have to create a new template based off the previous and add the scripts to update the latest software packages?

[@PetterTech]

Yes, that would be my approach 👍

[@PaulFulbright]

Very, very, useful. Thanks!

[@PetterTech]

Glad it was helpful!

[@markferreday2463]

Would it not be better to use app attach for applications than scripting them into the build?

[@PetterTech]

On a general basis, App Attach would be the better way. But not all orgs are ready for that and they might have their own reasons for not going down the route of doing App Attach

[@Axiizix]

Thank you for your video. There's something I don't understand: previously it was simple. You create your VM, install what you needed, run sysprep, and then you could capture and use the image. But with this new process, when am I supposed to install what I need in my image to create my master? (Sorry, I'm a beginner with AVD.) If I understand correctly, I create a custom template with this new feature, and then I have to create a VM, customize it with all the software I need, run sysprep, and capture it again? So nothing new in fact ? Maybe I'm missing something in the process to manage the golden image 😅

[@PetterTech]

You can still go with the old style of creating images, in that case you wouldn't need custom image templates though :) The whole point of custom image templates is to have all customization done by code, so instead of logging on the vm to install software and customize it you would add some scripts to do the same thing 👍

[@ounet3629]

After multiple test, the customer image template from avd doesn't work in trusted launch for me. After open microsoft ticket they said. Always uses stanfard. Wierd. do you succed with TL?

[@PetterTech]

What kind of errors are you seeing? Are you using a gallery to store images in or are you using managed images? I had to test it now to verify, but I am able to create an image through custom image templates and deploy session hosts with it that has trusted launch 🤷‍♂️

[@ounet3629]

@@PetterTech I have "Your VM selected is configured with unsupported trusted launch or confidential VM" event if my gallery image is in trusted launch. Microsoft said that it has to be standard.

[@PetterTech]

That's odd, if that were the case then I shouldn't have been able to do it. But it might be one of those cases where it's not supported, but in some cases work. Where in the process are you getting that error?

[@JonathanSchmidt-md9sh]

I used to have a test and a production environment which are running on the same Image. The test environment gets the software updates and if everything is successful I sysprep the test session host, "capture" it manually in the portal and create an image out of the capture to the image gallery. Then first redeploy from the image in stage and if everything works as expected use the same session hosts image from the image gallery to redeploy in production. Did I understand it right, that I can now use the stage session host including all the software and just create an image directly out of it without sysprepping it and immediately deploy new session hosts from it or is it just for the base installation without anything software related added afterwards? Is it also possible to store images in one "central" tenant and access it from another one? Sorry if you already covererd it somewhere but didn't find something to it.

[@PetterTech]

If I understand your scenario correctly then you could use the image you captured from the test session host as a basis for your next images when creating them by using the Custom Image Templates. So if you could apply the updates through code you could potentially save some time in this process, since it would save you the steps of deploying a new vm, applying updates and then sysprep'ing and capturing it as a new image. Regarding the option to store images in one central tenant, I do not now of a native way to this unfortunately.

[@CFPANDRADE]

what if we want to install apps on those images?

[@PetterTech]

You would do that via script then, like I do with powershell in the video 👍

[@fiokideiglenes1812]

How do you replace the active session hosts with the new image?

[@PetterTech]

You deploy new ones based on the new image, place the old ones in drain mode and as soon as the old ones are empty you decommission them :)

[@daveanvs]

Is there a way to do this with terraform?

[@PetterTech]

With the AzAPI v2 you should be able to create the custom image template and all the stuff you need, but probably not start the actual building of the image. I have not tried it myself though

[@fbifido2]

A few simple IaaS question: 1. How to upgrade an Azure Windows 11 21H2 Gen2 VM to 24H2 ? 2. How to upgrade an Azure Windows 11 Enterprise Multi-Session 21H2 Gen2 VM to 24H2 ? ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ I know it's a hard question, please ask all Microsoft Azure MVP you can reach !!!!! Please & Thanks.

[@PetterTech]

I have heard about cases where this is a tough one, though usually this applies to situations where the machines were upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 21H2. Is that the case in your scenario as well?

[@fbifido2]

@@PetterTech no

[@fbifido2]

@@PetterTech I now know it's a bad idea to upgrade an Azure VM from 21H2 to another version. Microsoft hopes that you redeploy with an Azure provided updated image, that was optimize for Azure, office, teams, etc...