SCCM Intune Support for VDI Devices Persistent Non-Persistent

Let us learn about SCCM Intune Support for VDI Devices Persistent Non-Persistent. SCCM management of Windows Virtual Desktop offering is getting more attention from Microsoft.

I didn’t see many developments within SCCM to support new Virtual Desktop (VDI) support scenarios in the recent past (not applicable for SCCM 1906 TP).

SCCM Intune VDI Support for Windows 10 Virtual Desktops in Azure in this post.

VDI – Still a Thing?

Do you think Virtual Desktops (VDIs) are still a thing in the modern workplace? Microsoft’s answer to this question is YES. The following are the scenarios that Microsoft explained in the Ignite presentation.

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VDI Scenarios - SCCM Intune VDI Support
VDI Scenarios – SCCM Intune VDI Support 1

HistorySCCM Intune VDI Support

SCCM treats VDI devices similar to physical devices. Most of the management tasks with SCCM shall work just fine for persistent VDIs. SCCM management of non-persistent VDIs might have many challenges.

NOTE 1 – We still have issues similar to this, even with the latest version of the SCCM 1902 production version. I’m not saying the above problem is because of SCCM. Instead, it’s more a problem with APP-V.

NOTE 2 – SCCM treats all the VDI devices (both on-prem & any cloud-hosted) as “physical” devices in a domain-joined (NOT Hybrid Azure AD join) scenario. The only different scenario is for Windows 10 new SKU called ” multiple concurrent active user sessions“(more details below).

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I can’t find any specific support statement from Microsoft on Intune VDI support (on-prem or cloud) apart from the announcements in various Ignite technical sessions.

I feel it will work well if you are using persistent VDIs (domain-joined dedicated VMs).

But, you might face issues if you try to use Intune for managing non-persistent VDIs. Also, the same problems might be applicable for other scenarios like shared PCs & Azure AD Joined devices.

SCCM Azure Windows Virtual Desktop Support

SCCM 1906 preview release is getting some love. Similar to a terminal server, Windows Virtual Desktops (WVD) in Azure allow multiple concurrent active user sessions.

And SCCM 1906 supports the multiple concurrent active user session scenarios.

You can now use SCCM 1906 technical preview to manage these virtual devices running Windows in Azure.

NOTE! – SCCM 1906 TP now disables user policies on any device that allows these multiple user sessions. Even if you enable user policies, the SCCM client disables them by default on these devices, including Windows Virtual Desktop and terminal servers.

More Details on Support for Windows Virtual Desktop are explained in the Microsoft documentation.

Intune Support for Azure Windows Virtual Desktop

Microsoft has not shared any information about the Intune support for Azure Windows Virtual Desktop. I hope to have more information and an Intune support statement on multiple concurrent active user session scenarios.

Azure AD Support for VDI Devices

Yes, Hybrid Azure AD (Domain join with Azure AD registration) is not supported for VDI (on-prem? or the VDIs not in Azure) devices.

So, if you have conditional access enabled for your Azure AD tenant, you might need to create some exclusion rules for your VDI estate.

More Details are in the Microsoft documentation.

Azure AD and Hybrid AD Support -  SCCM Intune VDI Support
Azure AD and Hybrid AD Support – SCCM Intune VDI Support 2

You can learn more about Azure VDI how-to guides from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/.

NOTE – There is still confusion around the Azure AD and Hybrid AD join device support for persistent/non-persistent VDIs (which are not hosted in Microsoft Azure).

Windows Virtual Desktop

Windows Virtual Desktop is a preview feature of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365. More details about Microsoft’s Windows Virtual Desktop offering are available in the below list.

  1. What is Windows Virtual Desktop Preview?
  2. Create a tenant in Windows Virtual Desktop
  3. Create a host pool with Azure Marketplace
  4. Manage app groups for Windows Virtual Desktop
  5. Create service principals and role assignments with PowerShell
SCCM Intune VDI Support
Microsoft Windows Desktop Offering – SCCM Intune VDI Support 3

Resources

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