Dedicated Mode

Overview

Windows 365 Frontline Dedicated Mode is aimed at an organization which has users who don’t need 24/7 access to their dedicated Cloud PCs. It’s ideal for shift workers since each Windows 365 Frontline license allows an organization to provision three Cloud PCs, of which one can be active at any time. For instance, imagine that Periwinkle Packaging Solutions have three teams of 10 people who work 8-hour shifts throughout a 24-hour period. Periwinkle Packaging Solutions can purchase 10 x Windows 365 Frontline licenses to cover these 30 people, since only 10 will be working at any one time.

Concurrency limit

The maximum number of active Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PC sessions in an organization is equal to the number of Windows 365 Frontline licenses that have been purchased. The active sessions are managed automatically, so that when a user signs off from their Cloud PC, the session is released for another user to start using their Cloud PC.

However, Windows 365 Frontline in Dedicated Mode does include a concurrency buffer to let a tenant temporarily exceed the maximum number of  Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs that are run at any time. For instance, when the shift is changing at Periwinkle Packaging Solutions, one worker might need to finish something slightly after the end of his shift, or another worker might need to start a few minutes early, The concurrency buffer is there to allow for these rare occasions of brief over usage, allowing the maximum number of Cloud PCs to be exceeded up to four times in one day with a maximum of one hour in each instance. If, on four or more occasions in a 24-hour period the concurrency buffer is used for more than one hour, then use of the concurrency buffer is temporarily blocked for the next 48 hours. The tenant is permanently blocked from using the concurrency buffer if the tenant is temporarily blocked more than two times in a 7-day period. If this happens, customers should open a support ticket in the Microsoft Intune Admin Center. Note that when the tenant is temporarily or permanently blocked, you can still use the Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs up to the maximum concurrency limit.

Resizing

The resizing of Windows 365 Frontline Cloud PCs in Dedicated Mode is currently in public preview.

Disaster Recovery

In July 2024 Microsoft launched a business continuity service for Windows 365 to protect against regional outages. When activated, the service creates temporary copies of users’ Cloud PCs in alternative geographical regions, preserving installed applications, user settings, and data, that can be accessed in a selected backup region. It’s licensed via a Windows 365 Cross Region Disaster Recovery Add-On license and is available for users licensed with Windows 365 Enterprise or (from September 2025) Windows 365 Frontline running in Dedicated Mode.