Microsoft has announced the (public preview) availability of the long awaited Windows 365 Cloud Apps. This marks the next step in the evolution of Windows 365 and enables applications to be streamed directly to Windows 365 users without any visual desktop elements (like a Taskbar). This is similar to the experience of Azure Virtual Desktop and RemoteApp.
Frontline Shared as the core for Cloud Apps
With Windows 365 Frontline Shared Microsoft laid the foundation to facilitate Cloud Apps. It delivers the platform where you can assign multiple people to a set of shared Cloud PCs specially built for task workers who need short-term access to a limited set of applications. I wrote a blog post on Frontline Shared earlier which you can read for more information.
Cloud Apps now uses this foundation and strips the user session from all Windows UI elements. This results in only a single application window being rendered on the user their remote session. Since it is built on Frontline Shared, it cannot be configured with Windows 365 Enterprise or Frontline Dedicated, which are designed for dedicated and personal access to a Cloud PC and supports full data storage. This also means that the amount of licenses/Cloud PCs that you assign to a Frontline Shared provisioning policy will equal the amount of maximum concurrent users for that policy.
Cloud Apps vs RemoteApp
I feel that one of the most common questions will be how this compares to Azure Virtual Desktop’s RemoteApp. The answer is that they are very similar. Windows 365 is however designed for simplicity, while AVD focuses on flexibility and customization. With Windows 365, there is no need for VDI or Azure knowledge, you can simply set it up right from within Intune. It is important to note that this is not necessarily an OR story but rather an AND story, as you can explore Cloud Apps even if you already use AVD.
Going with Windows 365 will always reduce your project lead by a significant amount.
Configuring Cloud Apps in Windows 365
As mentioned, the focus lies on simplicity, this time no difference. You can simply navigate to Windows 365 in Intune and create a new provisioning policy. Within this policy, you will find a new category called Experience, which allows you to define the overall user experience. Here you can choose between a full desktop, the traditional method, or access to Cloud Apps.
Can we please pause a moment and appreciate how the product group made a complex feature so simple and intuitive to set up?
Create the provisioning policy
To configure Cloud Apps, select “Access only apps which run on a Cloud PC.” Once selected, the remaining options will be automatically changed to deploy Frontline Shared. This is because its the only supported configuration compatible with Cloud Apps. All other settings on this page remain unchanged.
The second step is to select the image you will be using. As always it’s recommended to go with the default image that Microsoft provides as they will update the image for you so you don’t have to maintain your image each month.
On this page a second option has become available, it’s called “Apps”. This allows you to view all identified apps on the system. You can publish all these apps as Cloud Apps to your users. It’s nice information, but there is nothing to configure here.
All other settings remain unchanged, just click through them and configure an assignment by selecting the desired user group and the Cloud PC size.
Now publish the apps
You’ll notice a new tab on the Windows 365 page, it’s called All Cloud Apps, just like the All Cloud PCs it will show a list of all available resources, hence apps or desktops.
While the Cloud PC is provisioning, apps are marked with the “Processing” status. Once they are ready, the status is changed to “Ready to publish.” At that point, you can select an app to open a new window displaying its default parameters. From there, you either click Publish to publish the app directly, or select Edit to adjust the values and add additional parameters before publishing.
The edit page is where things get more interesting. For example, you can configure MSTSC to automatically connect to a server IP, giving partners quick access to an application’s backend. In this scenario, you would of course also need to use an Azure Network Connection or configure a VPN solution.
Complete the process by selecting the large Review + Publish button.
When you return to the All Cloud Apps view, you will see that the app status has updated to Published.
Now let users access the app
As with both AVD and Windows 365, users access resources through the Windows App. Admins can publish apps to users and they will see a new Apps icon appear in the navigation bar on the left. From there, the user can open the app directly or add it to their favorites for quick access.
Once users now open an app, it no longer launches a full desktop.. Instead, only the single application is streamed, appearing as it’s available between the user’s other local applications. This is a big difference from the traditional user experience.
It’s clear that Cloud Apps still builds on AVD, since the first window that initializes the connection still shows ‘RemoteApp’. 🙂
I created a quick comparison to highlight how this differs from the regular experience. I opened PowerPoint through Cloud Apps and, side by side, opened my local PowerPoint. In the first screenshot, you can see the Cloud App version, which has no extra borders and appears as if it is running directly on my own desktop.
When compared to the traditional layout, in the screenshot below, you will see a full Windows installation running PowerPoint. From a user perspective, the full desktop feels more isolated, whereas the Cloud App provides a cleaner, more seamless, integrated experience. In most cases, end users will not even notice they are working on a remote server.
There are some Limitations
There are some limitations, but the product team will certainly resolve many of them in future releases. And be aware, that with the speed that the team is launching new features, I don’t expect this to be a long wait. But currently ‘at launch” it’s not possible to:
- Publish apps that are installed on the Cloud PC using Intune,
- Publish multiple instances of a single app with different launch parameters
- Assign apps to different people, different from the assignment within the provisioning policy.
- No support for Windows 365 Link
What are your thoughts?
I am very happy to see Cloud Apps finally entering the Windows 365 space, it was currently a feature reserved for Azure Virtual Desktop or other competitive products. With Cloud Apps it’s finally possible to publish an App without any VDI experience. I am a big fan and hope you are too. I admit there are some limitations, but I am very confident the team is working hard to provide solutions for those use cases as well.
What do you think? Could Cloud Apps simplify your application delivery strategy, or do you see yourself sticking with AVD for now? Share your thoughts in the comments, I’d love to hear your perspective on this new feature.
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