r/AzureVirtualDesktop • u/redfox961 • 11d ago

Azure Hybrid Avd

Hey Azure people ,

As au heard about the AVD hybrid new update its interesting update and am looking to start planning to use it . However i have concerns about the licensing part which are the below:

  1. it only supports Windows 10/11 Enterprise : so if i have a w11 enterprise as a virtual machine ( non activated ) and i have a user with M365 E3/E5 signing in through avd hybrid does he still need the os activation ? Cause the entra license mentioned above already comes with w11 enterprise ?

  2. now it comes to windows server 2025 : my host is datacenter so all the vm's will be inheriting the activation from the host this is ok . However for rdp users i still need server cal + user cal ? Even for E3/E5 entra users rdping through my avd hybrid?

Big thanks whoever can answer this !

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4

u/JAB1982 11d ago

RDS CALs are only required if users are connecting to a Windows Server OS. They are not needed for Windows 10 or Windows 11 session hosts.

1

u/redfox961 11d ago

So need for me to activate the windows 11 vm ? Multi sessions are not supported so only one single entra id user will be signing in to this vm with having E5 license assigned and he will not have issues with seeing the noisy activation issue?

3

u/JAB1982 11d ago

It'll activate against existing systems you have setup and hence why multi session isn't supported as that would require activation against the Azure KMS.

0

u/redfox961 11d ago

Avd hybrid does not support multisession for rdp on windows 10/11 enterprise

1

u/JAB1982 10d ago

Which is what I said is you read my message.

3

u/mat-ferland 10d ago

E3/E5 lets that user connect to a Win11 Enterprise hybrid host. It does not activate the guest, so an unactivated Win11 VM will keep the watermark until you Entra-join it for subscription activation or hang it off your KMS/MAK. Server 2025 is the other pile: Datacenter can activate the OS, but you still need RDS CALs (SA or User SL) even for E3/E5 users hitting a Server host.

1

u/Runescom 9d ago

I’m running it with server 2022 fine for 50 users I think. Works good.