Windows 365 Reserve

Overview

Windows 365 Reserve is a solution that gives licensed users instant access to a temporary, pre-configured Cloud PC when their primary physical device is unavailable – perhaps through theft or damage.

Licensing

Windows 365 Reserve is a user license and may be assigned to users already licensed with Windows 10/11 Enterprise/Education, Intune, and Microsoft Entra ID Plan 1/Plan 2. The license allows up to 10 days of Cloud PC access per year for one user.

Windows 365 Reserve licenses aren’t assigned to individual users, they’re applied at the tenant level. IT administrators create a Reserve Provisioning Policy in Intune, and then assign a Microsoft Entra Group to it, to allocate licenses to users within that group. Cloud PCs can then be provisioned for users starting 7 days after assigning that user a license.

Reserve Cloud PCs are provisioned manually as needed, at which time the 10-day access meter starts counting down, and only pauses when the Cloud PC is manually deprovisioned. The 10 days can be used consecutively or spread across the 1-year license term, where a day is defined as a 24-hour period from the time the Cloud PC was provisioned. Any time spent in a 24-hour period counts as a day’s use.

Once a user’s Reserve Cloud PC has been provisioned, the license is considered to be “used” and can’t be reassigned to another user within the 1-year license term. Unused days expire when the license term ends.

History

Windows 365 Reserve was announced by Microsoft in June 2025. it entered limited public preview in August 2025, and was finally made generally available in November 2025.