Author: Toby Skerritt

  • Installing Nvidia GRID Drivers on NCasT4_v3-series VMs

    As I’ve mentioned before, the NCasT4_v3 is probably the sweet-spot GPU enabled Azure desktop. It offers excellent performance for a reasonable price, and can handle most mid level CAD and modelling duties. I’ve no idea of the reasons, but there seem to be a lot of caveats specifically for it, which can make taking advantage…

  • Simple Sign-In for AAD Joined Devices

    We’ve had a couple of clients with AAD joined desktops looking to simplify the user logon experience. Windows Hello plays its part, but users working in organisations using traditional Usernames and Passwords – especially those with unreasonably long tenant aliases – the logon process can be a pain. I’ve seen clients with tenant suffixes along…

  • Application Testing & Migration with Rimo3

    I’ve had the chance to play with Rimo3’s cloud based app modernisation suite and I must say, it provides an excellent alternative to manual application compatibility testing and packaging. For any organisations who use multiple LOB applications, taking Rimo3 for a test drive should be high on the agenda. A lot of this content has…

  • Nerdio Manager for Enterprise – Scripted Remediation Tasks

    We have an AVD client who wanted to install Windows Store applications on personal AVD desktops. Unfortunately, these devices had the AVD optimisation scripts run against them, meaning many core services had been disabled in order to reduce resource usage. These optimisation scripts often have a benefit in Session host environments where resource constraints are…

  • Reduce your AVD Log Analytics costs with Nerdio

    Nerdio Manager for Enterprise now offers Azure Log Analytics optimisations. Here’s a one minute video showing how to reduce the cost of an un-optimised AVD Insights deployment by circa 50%

  • Configuring Windows 365 Bakcup

    Here’s a brief video covering Windows 365 backup policy creation, policy assignment, and the recovery process for users.

  • Windows 365 – Technical Overview

    Windows 365 is Microsoft’s new Cloud PC ‘as a service’ offering. It differs from the Azure Virtual Desktop service because: W365 offers dedicated, one to one desktops only. AVD offers both dedicated and shared desktops, as well as remote application streaming. W365 desktops are charged at a monthly flat-fee per-user. AVD is charged on a…

  • Microsoft Endpoint Manager QuickStart Guide 1 – Groups

    Much like System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft Endpoint Manager (MEM) and InTune can be extremely complex to manage. Here are some tips for designing a scalable, manageable MEM environment. This is part 1 of a series. In this post I cover initial AAD group planning and creation. Azure Active Directory (AAD) groups can be used to manage MEM assignments…

  • InTune Printer Management policies for Azure AD joined devices

    I’ve been working with a client on their AutoPilot process for AAD joined devices. One of the issue they were encountering was that printer driver installations would fail without prompting for Administrative credentials. The ‘Install Driver’ dialogue box would surface, and after clicking ‘install driver’ the process would appear to complete, with the driver being…

  • Dynamic AVD host scaling with Nerdio Manager

    One of the most important functions to consider when planning an Azure Virtual Desktop infrastructure is host scaling. Azure compute resource costs will, in most cases, be far and away the largest proportion of your monthly spend, so ensuring that the environment is scaled up and down depending upon requirements can drastically reduce your monthly…