Microsoft announce the General Availability of Windows Autopatch – a cloud service that automates updates for Windows, Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise, Edge and Teams.
It’s included with Windows 10/11 Enterprise E3/E5/VDA licences, and customers also need to be licensed for Azure Active Directory Premium and Microsoft Intune to take advantage of the service.
You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3vcQMWq, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3S7o1o9.
Microsoft announce that Windows Virtual Desktop is now Azure Virtual Desktop. There are a whole host of new features in preview, as well as a new licensing option. Historically, users licensed with Microsoft 365 E3/E5/F3/Business Premium or Windows 10 E3/E5 or Windows 10 VDA E3/E5 licenses have rights to the service for virtual desktops and apps. Now, there’s a per user option for external users which is a monthly per user price of $5.50 for apps, or $10 for apps + desktops, with a no-cost promotional period from 14 July, 2021 to 31 December, 2021.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3v4aa56.
A VDA Add-on for Microsoft 365 E3/E5 is added to page 57 of the March 2020 Product Terms
This Subscription Licence allows Microsoft 365 E3/E5 users to access a Windows Enterprise Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on dedicated servers when the users don’t have a primary device with a Qualifying Operating System – for example, users whose primary device is a thin client or a Mac. Note that these licences are only available to customers buying through an Enterprise Agreement.
Find the current Product Terms document here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.
Microsoft announce that Windows Virtual Desktop is now in public preview.
This new Azure service will allow customers to run Windows 7, Windows 10 or Windows Server desktops and provide free Extended Security Updates for customers choosing Windows 7.
Customers will already be licensed for the client desktops if they have Microsoft 365 F1/E3/E5, Windows 10 E3/E5 or Windows VDA licences, and for Windows Server desktops if they’ve got RDS CALs. Reserved Instances may also be used to optimise costs for the infrastructure.
This site (http://bit.ly/2HPbqo2) has all the information as well as a video that gives an excellent overview of the service.
The “Licensing Windows and Office for Use on a Mac” Volume Licensing Brief is updated for December 2015 to include Windows SA per User and VDA per User licensing.
There’s a new question added which sums up the changes: “Can a user licensed with Windows Software Assurance per User or Windows VDA per User access Windows Enterprise on or from a Mac?”
The answer – yes, through a VDI environment, or installed locally if the Mac is licensed with Windows 7/8/8.1 Pro. Get the document here: http://bit.ly/Hkv3BM.
There have been recent changes in the licensing of the Windows Embedded products which bring them much closer to the licensing of “regular” Windows. One of the changes is the increase in SA benefits and if you have SA on a device running Windows 8.1 Industry Enterprise then you now get VDA rights, which means that you no longer need to purchase VDA licences for those devices to access a VDI desktop. There’s an interesting Microsoft article if you want to read more: http://bit.ly/1jgqWkW.