License virtualization use rights either per-device or per-user license to allow remote access of a Windows 10 in a VM remotely from a server. Remember, only the single primary user of a Windows licensed device may remotely access said device.ĭo license your users or their primary work device for the Windows 10 Enterprise E3/E5 OR Windows Virtual Desktop Access (VDA). The OEM/Retail/Volume License Upgrades do not permit remote use rights from a shared device (AKA server).
Is a Win 10 Enterprise license required for the VMs?ĭo not use Retail, OEM or the Windows 10 Pro Volume License Upgrade to license the access of a Windows 10 VM or instance (i.e.
so, SA is also worthless to my implementation, where none of the remote users will be using company-owned or distributed devices to connect to the hosted VMs.ĭoes a Microsoft E3 license subscription assigned to users, giving them Windows 10 Enterprise license activation rights, include the necessary licensing for the VM OS to activate properly without having to purchase a separate Windows 10 Pro license?ĭoes the same E3 license cover the user for accessing the Win10 VM hosted on a Windows 2019 server without having to add a VDA subscription? If not, what is the applicable product code for the VDA license? We're seeing multiple flavors of VDA including some that reference E3, which seems redundant, if we already assign an E3 license to the user. I know of no user, personally, that has ever purchased or even been offered SA when buying a personal computer for home use. So, that document sheds no light on my questions or options, since those offerings either weren't around or in very early adoption stages when that document was written. The problem with referencing a Microsoft document from 2012 is that it makes no mention of InTune or Microsoft E3 subscriptions.
Hope this helps and please help to accept as Answer if the response is useful. Last but not least, you could reach VLSC support for a call and consult the questions of CAL. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy and effectiveness of information. Please note: Information posted in the given link is hosted by a third party.
Licensing the Windows Desktop for VDI Environmentsīesides, quoted explanation from Dashrender "To use VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface) you need and OS license (either a workstation license with Software Assurance or VDA or Intune ) and a connection method license, such as RDS or VMWare View or XenDesktop." in a similar discussion. Remote-desktop-services azure-virtual-desktop azure-ad-licensingĪs for CAL used in VDI, you could check below FAQ to understand better. So, we are unsure what's proper.Īre any licenses required for the Windows 10 VMs themselves (the OS)? but, the Microsoft brief seems to indicate it's either/or and not both. Some licensing vendors have suggested that both VDA and E3 subscriptions are necessary. From that, I am assuming that since we cannot ascertain whether a remote user's personal device (the device they connect from) has Software Assurance, and is unlikely to have a VDA subscription, the users will need either an E3 or VDA subscription, but not both. We've referenced the April 2020 licensing brief " Licensing Windows desktop operating system for use with virtual machines." On, our intended scenario is the first one listed. Users will continue to connect to their existing FortiNet VPN and from there, RDP to their own Windows 10 VM hosted on the server.Ĭustomer already has necessary Server 2019 User and RDS CALs from prior session-based implementation. Users are all off-site, using their own personal devices (not company owned). We'd remove the session-based implementation and replace with VDI. We have a customer who wants to switch from session-based RDS running on a Server 2019 VM to a VDI deployment (Windows Server 2019 Remote Desktop Virtualization Host role), where users would connect to "personal" Windows 10 VMs.