Task 1 – Begin the host pool setup process

To start creating your new host pool:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com.

   [!NOTE] If you're signing in to the US Gov portal, go to https://portal.azure.us/ instead.

   If you're accessing the Azure China portal, go to https://portal.azure.cn/.

2. Enter Azure Virtual Desktop into the search bar, then find and select Azure Virtual Desktop under Services.

3. In the Azure Virtual Desktop overview page, select Create a host pool.

4. In the Basics tab, select the correct subscription under Project details.

5. Either select Create new to make a new resource group or select an existing resource group from the drop-down menu.

6. Enter a unique name for your host pool.

7. In the Location field, select the region where you want to create the host pool from the drop-down menu.

   The Azure geography associated with the regions you selected is where the metadata for this host pool and its related objects will be stored. Make sure you choose the regions inside the geography you want the service metadata to be stored in.

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   [!NOTE] If you want to create your host pool in a supported region outside the US, you'll need to re-register the resource provider. After re-registering, you should see the other regions in the drop-down for selecting the location. Learn how to re-register at our Host pool creation troubleshooting article.

8. Under Host pool type, select whether your host pool will be Personal or Pooled.

   • If you choose Personal, then select either Automatic or Direct in the Assignment Type field.

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9. If you choose Pooled, enter the following information:

   • For Max session limit, enter the maximum number of users you want load-balanced to a single session host.

   • For Load balancing algorithm, choose either breadth-first or depth-first, based on your usage pattern. Learn more about what each of these options means at Host pool load-balancing methods.

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10. Select Next: Virtual Machines >.

11. If you've already created virtual machines and want to use them with the new host pool, select No, select Next: Workspace > and jump to the Workspace information section. If you want to create new virtual machines and register them to the new host pool, select Yes.

Now that you've created a host pool, let's move on to the next part of the setup process where we create the VM.

Task 2 – Virtual machine details

Now that we're through the first part, you'll have to set up your VM.

To set up your virtual machine within the Azure portal host pool setup process:

1. Under Resource group, choose the resource group where you want to create the virtual machines. This can be a different resource group than the one you used for the host pool.

2. After that, provide a Name prefix to name the virtual machines the setup process creates. The suffix will be - with numbers starting from 0.

3. Choose the Virtual machine location where you want to create the virtual machines. They can be the same or different from the region you selected for the host pool. Keep in mind that VM prices vary by region, and the VM locations should be near their users when possible to maximize performance. Learn more at Data locations for Azure Virtual Desktop.

4. Next, choose the availability option that best suit your needs. To learn more about which option is right for you, see Availability options for virtual machines in Azure and our FAQ.

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5. Next, choose the security type that you would like to use for your virtual machines. You can choose either Standard or Trusted Launch virtual machines. To learn more about Trusted Launch virtual machines, see Trusted Launch for Azure virtual machines.

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   If Trusted Launch virtual machines is selected, choose which Trusted Launch security features you would like to enable.

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6. Next, choose the image that needs to be used to create the virtual machine. You can choose either Gallery or Storage blob.

   • If you choose Gallery, select one of the recommended images from the drop-down menu:

     • Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, Version 1909
     • Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, Version 1909 + Microsoft 365 Apps
     • Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
     • Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, Version 2004
     • Windows 10 Enterprise multi-session, Version 2004 + Microsoft 365 Apps

     If you don't see the image you want, select See all images, which lets you select either another image in your gallery or an image provided by Microsoft and other publishers. Make sure that the image you choose is one of the supported OS images.

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     You can also go to My Items and choose a custom image you've already uploaded.

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   • If you choose Storage Blob, you can use your own image build through Hyper-V or on an Azure VM. All you have to do is enter the location of the image in the storage blob as a URI.

   The image's location is independent of the availability option, but the image’s zone resiliency determines whether that image can be used with availability zone. If you select an availability zone while creating your image, make sure you're using an image from the gallery with zone resiliency enabled. To learn more about which zone resiliency option you should use, see the FAQ.

7. After that, choose the Virtual machine size you want to use. You can either keep the default size as-is or select Change size to change the size. If you select Change size, in the window that appears, choose the size of the virtual machine suitable for your workload. To learn more about virtual machine sizes and which size you should choose, see Virtual machine sizing guidelines.

8. Under Number of VMs, provide the number of VMs you want to create for your host pool.

   [!NOTE] The setup process can create up to 400 VMs while setting up your host pool, and each VM setup process creates four objects in your resource group. Since the creation process doesn't check your subscription quota, make sure the number of VMs you enter is within the Azure VM and API limits for your resource group and subscription. You can add more VMs after you finish creating your host pool.

9. Choose what kind of OS disks you want your VMs to use: Standard SSD, Premium SSD, or Standard HDD.

10. Under Network and security, select the Virtual network and Subnet where you want to put the virtual machines you create. Make sure the virtual network can connect to the domain controller, since you'll need to join the virtual machines inside the virtual network to the domain. The DNS servers of the virtual network you selected should be configured to use the IP of the domain controller.

11. Select what kind of security group you want: Basic, Advanced, or None.

    If you select Basic, you'll have to select whether you want any inbound port open. If you select Yes, choose from the list of standard ports to allow inbound connections to.

    [!NOTE] For greater security, we recommend that you don't open public inbound ports.

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    If you choose Advanced, select an existing network security group that you've already configured.

12. After that, select whether you want the virtual machines to be joined to Active Directory or Azure Active Directory (Preview).

    • For Active Directory, provide an account to join the domain and choose if you want to join a specific domain and organizational unit.

      • For the AD domain join UPN, enter the credentials for the Active Directory Domain admin of the virtual network you selected. The account you use can't have multifactor authentication (MFA) enabled. When joining to an Azure Active Directory Domain Services (Azure AD DS) domain, the account you use must be part of the Azure AD DC Administrators group and the account password must work in Azure AD DS.

      • To specify a domain, select Yes, then enter the name of the domain you want to join. If you want, you can also add a specific organizational unit you want the virtual machines to be in by entering the full path (Distinguished Name) and without quotation marks. If you don't want to specify a domain, select No. The VMs will automatically join the domain that matches the suffix of the AD domain join UPN.

    • For Azure Active Directory, you can select Enroll the VM with Intune to automatically make the VM available for management after it's deployed.

13. Under Virtual Machine Administrator account, enter the credentials for the local admin account to be added while creating the VM. You can use this account for management purposes in both AD and Azure AD-joined VMs.

14. Under Post update custom configuration, you can enter the location of an Azure Resource Manager template to perform custom configurations on your session hosts after you create them. You'll need to enter the URLs for both the Azure Resource Manager template file and the Azure Resource Manager template parameter file.

    [!NOTE] Azure Virtual Desktop doesn't support provisioning Azure resources in the template.

15. Select Next: Workspace >.

With that, we're ready to start the next phase of setting up your host pool: registering your app group to a workspace.

Task 3 – Workspace information

The host pool setup process creates a desktop application group by default. For the host pool to work as intended, you'll need to publish this app group to users or user groups, and you must register the app group to a workspace.

[!NOTE] If you're an app developer trying to publish your organization’s apps, you can dynamically attach MSIX apps to user sessions or add your app packages to a custom VM image. See How to serve your custom app with Azure Virtual Desktop for more information.

To register the desktop app group to a workspace:

1. Select Yes.

   If you select No, you can register the app group later, but we recommend you get the workspace registration done as soon as you can so your host pool works properly.

2. Next, choose whether you want to create a new workspace or select from existing workspaces. Only workspaces created in the same location as the host pool will be allowed to register the app group to.

3. Optionally, you can select Next: Tags >.

   Here you can add tags so you can group the objects with metadata to make things easier for your admins.

4. When you're done, select Review + create.

   [!NOTE] The review + create validation process doesn't check if your password meets security standards or if your architecture is correct, so you'll need to check for any problems with either of those things yourself.

5. Review the information about your deployment to make sure everything looks correct. When you're done, select Create.

Azure CLI

Use the az desktopvirtualization workspace create command to create the new workspace:

az desktopvirtualization workspace create --name "MyWorkspace" \
    --resource-group "MyResourceGroup" \
    --location "MyLocation" \
    --tags tag1="value1" tag2="value2" \
    --friendly-name "Friendly name of this workspace" \
    --description "Description of this workspace" 

This starts the deployment process, which creates the following objects:

• Your new host pool.
• A desktop app group.
• A workspace, if you chose to create it.
• If you chose to register the desktop app group, the registration will be completed.
• Virtual machines, if you chose to create them, which are joined to the domain and registered with the new host pool.
• A download link for an Azure Resource Management template based on your configuration.

After that, you're all done!

Run the Azure Resource Manager template to provision a new host pool

If you'd rather use an automated process, download our Azure Resource Manager template to provision your new host pool instead.

[!NOTE] If you're using an automated process to build your environment, you'll need the latest version of the configuration JSON file. You can find the JSON file here.

Next steps

Now that you've made your host pool, you can populate it with RemoteApp programs. To learn more about how to manage apps in Azure Virtual Desktop, head to our next tutorial:

[!IMPORTANT] This content applies to Azure Virtual Desktop with Azure Resource Manager Azure Virtual Desktop objects. If you're using Azure Virtual Desktop (classic) without Azure Resource Manager objects, see this article.

The default app group created for a new Azure Virtual Desktop host pool also publishes the full desktop. In addition, you can create one or more RemoteApp application groups for the host pool. Follow this tutorial to create a RemoteApp app group and publish individual Start menu apps.

[!NOTE] You can dynamically attach MSIX apps to user sessions or add your app packages to a custom virtual machine (VM) image to publish your organization's apps. Learn more at How to host custom apps with Azure Virtual Desktop.

In this tutorial, learn how to:

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• Create a RemoteApp group.
• Grant access to RemoteApp programs.

Task 1 – Create a RemoteApp group

If you've already created a host pool and session host VMs using the Azure portal or PowerShell, you can add application groups from the Azure portal with the following process:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

   [!NOTE] If you're signing in to the US Gov portal, go to https://portal.azure.us/ instead.

   If you're accessing the Azure China portal, go to https://portal.azure.cn/.

2. Search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop.

3. You can add an application group directly or you can add it from an existing host pool. Choose an option below:

   • Select Application groups in the menu on the left side of the page, then select + Add.

   • Select Host pools in the menu on the left side of the screen, select the name of the host pool, select Application groups from the menu on the left side, then select + Add. In this case, the host pool will already be selected on the Basics tab.

4. On the Basics tab, select the Subscription and Resource group you want to create the app group for. You can also choose to create a new resource group instead of selecting an existing one.

5. Select the Host pool that will be associated with the application group from the drop-down menu.

   [!NOTE] You must select the host pool associated with the application group. App groups have apps or desktops that are served from a session host and session hosts are part of host pools. The app group needs to be associated with a host pool during creation.

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6. Select RemoteApp under Application group type, then enter a name for your RemoteApp.

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7. Select Next: Assignments > tab.

8. To assign individual users or user groups to the app group, select +Add Azure AD users or user groups.

9. Select the users you want to have access to the apps. You can select single or multiple users and user groups.

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10. Select Select.

11. Select Next: Applications >, then select +Add applications.

12. To add an application from the start menu:

    • Under Application source, select Start menu from the drop-down menu. Next, under Application, choose the application from the drop-down menu.

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    • In Display name, enter the name for the application that will be shown to the user on their client.

    • Leave the other options as-is and select Save.

13. To add an application from a specific file path:

    • Under Application source, select File path from the drop-down menu.

    • In Application path, enter the path to the application on the session host registered with the associated host pool.

    • Enter the application's details in the Application name, Display name, Icon path, and Icon index fields.

    • Select Save.

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14. Repeat this process for every application you want to add to the application group.

15. Next, select Next: Workspace >.

16. If you want to register the app group to a workspace, select Yes for Register application group. If you'd rather register the app group at a later time, select No.

17. If you select Yes, you can select an existing workspace to register your app group to.

    [!NOTE] You can only register the app group to workspaces created in the same location as the host pool. Also. if you've previously registered another app group from the same host pool as your new app group to a workspace, it will be selected and you can't edit it. All app groups from a host pool must be registered to the same workspace.

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18. Optionally, if you want to create tags to make your workspace easy to organize, select Next: Tags > and enter your tag names.

19. When you're done, select Review + create.

20. Wait a bit for the validation process to complete. When it's done, select Create to deploy your app group.

The deployment process will do the following things for you:

• Create the RemoteApp app group.
• Add your selected apps to the app group.
• Publish the app group published to users and user groups you selected.
• Register the app group, if you chose to do so.
• Create a link to an Azure Resource Manager template based on your configuration that you can download and save for later.

[!IMPORTANT] You can only create 500 application groups for each Azure Active Directory tenant. We added this limit because of service limitations for retrieving feeds for our users. This limit doesn't apply to app groups created in Azure Virtual Desktop (classic).

Task 2 – Edit or remove an app (optional)

To edit or remove an app from an app group:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

   [!NOTE] If you're signing in to the US Gov portal, go to https://portal.azure.us/ instead.

2. Search for and select Azure Virtual Desktop.

3. You can either add an application group directly or from an existing host pool by choosing one of the following options:

   • To add a new application group directly, select Application groups in the menu on the left side of the page, then select the app group you want to edit.
   • To edit an app group in an existing host pool, select Host pools in the menu on the left side of the screen, select the name of the host pool, then select Application groups in the menu that appears on the left side of the screen, and then select the app group you want to edit.

4. Select Applications in the menu on the left side of the page.

5. If you want to remove an application, select the check box next to the application, then select Remove from the menu on the top of the page.

6. If you want to edit the details of an application, select the application name. This will open up the editing menu.

7. When you're done making changes, select Save.

Next steps

Task 1 – Connect to Azure Virtual Desktop with the web client

[!IMPORTANT] This content applies to Azure Virtual Desktop with Azure Resource Manager Azure Virtual Desktop objects. If you're using Azure Virtual Desktop (classic) without Azure Resource Manager objects, see this article.

The web client lets you access your Azure Virtual Desktop resources from a web browser without the lengthy installation process.

[!NOTE] The web client doesn't currently have mobile OS support.

Supported operating systems and browsers

[!IMPORTANT] As of September 30, 2021, the Azure Virtual Desktop web client no longer supports Internet Explorer. We recommend that you use Microsoft Edge to connect to the web client instead. For more information, see our blog post.

While any HTML5-capable browser should work, we officially support the following operating systems and browsers:

Access remote resources feed

In a browser, navigate to the Azure Resource Manager-integrated version of the Azure Virtual Desktop web client at https://rdweb.wvd.microsoft.com/arm/webclient and sign in with your user account.

[!NOTE] If you're using Azure Virtual Desktop (classic) without Azure Resource Manager integration, connect to your resources at https://rdweb.wvd.microsoft.com/webclient instead.

If you're using the US Gov portal, use https://rdweb.wvd.azure.us/arm/webclient/index.html.

To connect to the Azure China portal, use https://rdweb.wvd.azure.cn/arm/webclient/index.html.

[!NOTE] If you've already signed in with a different Azure Active Directory account than the one you want to use for Azure Virtual Desktop, you should either sign out or use a private browser window.

After signing in, you should now see a list of resources. You can launch resources by selecting them like you would a normal app in the All Resources tab.

Task 2 – Customize the link for the web client

[!IMPORTANT] This content applies to Azure Virtual Desktop with Azure Resource Manager Azure Virtual Desktop objects. If you're using Azure Virtual Desktop (classic) without Azure Resource Manager objects, see this article.

The web client lets you access your Azure Virtual Desktop resources from a web browser without the lengthy installation process.