Joe Poyzer

Specializing in networking, systems, cloud, and automation.

📌 Overview

This lab covers deploying an Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) environment from scratch — host pool, session hosts, application groups, and FSLogix profile containers — including troubleshooting a RemoteApp publishing issue that wasn't visible from any single setting in the portal.

Environment:

  • Azure Virtual Desktop host pool (pooled, Windows 11 multi-session)
  • FSLogix profile containers for user profile management
  • RemoteApp application groups publishing individual apps (Chrome, Word)
  • Desktop application group for full desktop sessions

🔧 Objectives

  • Stand up a functional AVD host pool with session hosts
  • Configure FSLogix for user profile roaming
  • Publish both RemoteApps and a full desktop experience
  • Validate the app feed for test users end-to-end

⚠️ Licensing Gotcha

Early in the build, session hosts weren't deploying correctly for Windows 11 multi-session — the fix ended up being a licensing checkbox that's easy to miss in the deployment wizard, confirming the host pool's session host image and licensing are actually entitled for multi-session before deployment.

🚧 The RemoteApp Feed Problem

Once the host pool and session hosts were up, published RemoteApps (Chrome, Word) weren't showing up in the feed for test users — even though the deployment appeared fully configured. Every visible setting looked correct.

Troubleshooting approach: rather than guessing, went layer by layer using PowerShell to check the deployment directly:

Get-AzWvdApplication
Get-AzWvdApplicationGroup
Get-AzRoleAssignment
Get-AzWvdWorkspace

All of it came back clean, which meant the problem wasn't a misconfiguration in any single place — it had to be an interaction between settings.

Root cause: a user assigned to both a Desktop application group and a RemoteApp application group on the same host pool caused the broker to suppress the RemoteApp feed entirely. Removing the user's direct assignment wasn't enough on its own — the group-based assignment also had to be cleared, since either path alone still caused the conflict.

📈 Results

  • Session hosts deployed correctly for Windows 11 multi-session after fixing the licensing configuration
  • RemoteApp feed worked correctly for test users once both assignment paths (direct and group-based) were cleared
  • FSLogix profile containers confirmed working across sessions

📝 Notes / Lessons Learned

  • Some AVD issues can't be solved by checking settings individually — they require understanding how two valid-looking configurations can conflict with each other at the broker level
  • PowerShell is often more reliable than the portal for confirming exactly what's assigned where, especially when the portal UI doesn't surface a conflict clearly
  • Licensing/entitlement issues can masquerade as deployment failures — worth checking early rather than assuming it's a networking or image problem