September 27, 2022February 9, 2023 Azvise

Delete a user profile in Azure Virtual Desktop – AVD

To remove a user profile in Azure Virtual Desktop, you must first be sure that the user is logged off. If you are unsure on how to do it, follow the guide below.

Disconnect a user session in Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) – PowerShell

After you’ve checked this, you got two options based on the type of profile architecture you chose to implement.

If the profiles are stored locally, you can proceed to remove them as you’d do in standard W10 machine.
If you are using FSLogix, which is the recommended way to handle them, you can proceed to remove the user folder from the Azure File Share.

If you are unsure about which type of user profile solution you use, you can log in to a standard user account (preferably the one you wish to remove) and follow the guide below.

Check whether you are using an FSLogix profile in Azure Virtual Desktop – AVD

If you fall under the first option, log into the AVD instance/instances with an admin user account, open “Run“, then type netplwiz.exe and click enter. This will open the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel. From there, you’ll get a list of all the users. Next, click on the user profile you’d like to delete and click “Remove”. You’ll have to repeat this procedure for all the AVD hosts in your environment.

If you are running FSLogix, log into the Azure File Share hosting your profiles, then locate the user folder you wish to delete. Usually, the format is either %username%%sid% or “%sid%%username%, depending on whether you have added the FlipFlopProfileDirectoryName registry in the FSLogix configuration (FlipFlopDirectoryName | AVD). Once you have found it, open it, and delete the VHD/ VHDX stored inside, as per the screenshot below. After the VHD deletion has been completed, delete the user profile folder.

June 15, 2021October 12, 2022 Azvise

Disconnect a user session in Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) – PowerShell

Prerequisites: The Microsoft.RDInfra.RDPowerShell module, the Az PS module

First, install the RDInfra module:

Install-Module -Name Microsoft.RDInfra.RDPowerShell; Import-Module -Name Microsoft.RDInfra.RDPowerShell

Then proceed by installing the Az module and logging in:

Connect-AzAccount

Once you are logged in you can run the following script to disconnect a specific user session:

Get-RdsUserSession -TenantName "tenantname.onmicrosoft.com" -HostPoolName "HostPoolName" | where { $_.UserPrincipalName -eq "azvise\demouser" } | Invoke-RdsUserSessionLogoff -NoUserPrompt

January 21, 2021February 9, 2023 Azvise

The Group Policy Client service failed the sign-in. Access is denied – AVD/WVD

If you get this error there is probably something wrong with the user profile. It’s usually either that the VHD / VHDx is locked, or the cached profile is broken.

In the first case sometimes the Windows Session closes down and doesn’t alert FSLogix to unlock the disk. Before you reboot the VM, consider adding the following registry entry:

CleanupInvalidSessions

Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\fslogix\apps\CleanupInvalidSessions

Type: DWORD

Value to set: 1

At times a Windows Session may suffer an inelegant termination, in these cases FSLogix is not provided an appropriate event to trigger the dismount of the VHD(x) file for Profile Container and Office Container. By setting CleanupInvalidSessions to 1, additional FSLogix logic is triggered to make this scenario less likely. Setting CleanupInvalidSessions will cause the functionality to be utilized for both Profile Container and Office Container. KNOWN ISSUE: at this time CleanupInvalidSessions should not be used in conjunction with Cloud Cache when concurrent sessions (e.g utilizing ProfileType/VHDAccessMode) are in use.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/fslogix/profile-container-configuration-reference

In the second case head into C:\Users\ and backup the profile related to the blocked user, then rename it to profilename_local.

October 14, 2020October 12, 2022 Azvise

Change Outlook profiles from one month cache to online in AVD/WVD

Unfortunately, at this time, there is no way to change Outlook profiles from cached mode (1 month retention) to online mode in the Outlook settings.

To configure the cache settings in Outlook (2016/365) in a WVD session you need to use Active Directory GPOs or local Group Policies.

To use local group policies follow these steps:

Download the following ADMX in your environment: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49030
Extract the files
Copy the outlk16.admx file to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\
Based on the language folders you see in your WVD host copy the outlk16.adml file from the admx\xx-xx folder to the relative folder in %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions\

Open gpedit.msc
Go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Microsoft Outlook 2016 > Account Settings > Exchange > Cached Exchange Mode.
Set “Use Cached Exchange Mode for new and existing Outlook profiles” to Disabled