AVD shared host pool - Login to specific VM

Question

Hi,

Is it possible to login to a specific VM when using AVD shared host pools? Users need to be able to login into VM1 to run something then also login to VM2 to run something else so they need to be able to pick which of the shared hosts to login to sometimes.

VMs have to be shared as they are running some long running jobs from multiple users at once.

Answer 1

Hi @James Page,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here.

No, with Azure Virtual Desktop shared host pools, you can't log in to a specific VM directly. Instead, the system automatically assigns you to an available VM within the pool, so you don’t have control over which virtual machine you connect to each time you log in.

A host pool can be one of two types: Personal or Pooled.

In a Personal host pool, each session host is assigned to an individual user, providing dedicated desktops for end-users.

Whereas in a pooled setup, user sessions can be load-balanced to any session host in the host pool. There can be multiple different users on a single session host at the same time. Pooled host pools provide a shared remote experience to end-user- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-desktop/configure-host-pool-load-balancing?tabs=portal

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