Let’s learn how to move Windows 365 Cloud PC from One Region to Another. Moving a Cloud PC is configured at the provisioning policy level, Cloud PC Admins can move Cloud PCs to another region by the edited provisioning policy assigned to the new region or ANC.
Why do you need to Move Cloud PC? From time to time, your employees may need to relocate from one location to another. Or, more often, you need to move your Windows 365 Cloud PC from one Microsoft Datacenter to another.
The capability to move Windows 365 Cloud PCs from one datacenter region to another was introduced in Summer 2023 and is in public preview by June 2023.
The best time to perform moves is over the weekend to minimise the impact on users. Cloud PCs will be shut down during the move process, so you should notify your users before the move so that they can save their work and sign off.
All Cloud PCs in the move are backed up before being moved to the new region. This backup, which can take some time, can begin while the user is signed in and active. After the backup is complete, the Cloud PC is shut down.
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Move Windows 365 Cloud PC to Another Region
Let’s look at the steps to modify an existing Provisioning Policy for Windows 365 Cloud PC. You can move existing Cloud PCs from their current region or Azure network connection (ANC) to a new one by editing a provisioning policy.
- Sign in to the Microsoft Intune admin center https://intune.microsoft.com/.
- Select Devices > Windows 365 (under Provisioning) > Provisioning policies.
- Select the Azure AD Join policy from the lists you want to modify to configure for moving the Cloud PC region.
After selecting Cloud PC Provisioning policies from the existing list, scroll down and click the “Edit” button in the General section.
Under Join type details, make changes depending on requirements, and configure the Windows 365 Cloud PC Geography and Region. Here, I will be changing the location of Cloud PC to India, Geography is set to Central India for testing, and Click Next.
- For Hybrid Microsoft Entra Join, change the ANC*.
- For Microsoft Entra Join:
- You can change Network type from ANC to Microsoft hosted network, or vice versa.
- If a Microsoft hosted network is used, change the Geography and/or Region.
- If an Azure network connection is used, change the ANC*.
On the Review+Create window, review the added Geograohy, and Region and click on Update.
A notification will appear automatically in the top right-hand corner with the message “Successfully updated policy.”
When ready to move the existing Cloud PCs, select Apply region change to existing Cloud PCs. All Cloud PCs provisioned after these changes are created in the new region. This would affect all the Cloud PCs provisioned with this selected provisioning policy.
Note! The domain defined in the new ANC must match the Cloud PCs you want to move. The domain used in the original ANC must be reachable from the new ANC.
A notification message will appear Apply region change? Cloud PCs will be shutdown during this process. Users will be disconnected, and any unsaved work will be lost.
A notification will appear automatically in the top right-hand corner with the message “Apply region change in progress” Starting region change for Cloud PCs assigned to the provisioning policy Windows 365 – AAD Join.
Cloud PC Admin Experience
The screenshot below shows the Cloud PC moved to another selection region in the Intune Admin Center. The Windows 365 service initiates the process. As Admin view, you notice from the Windows 365 -> All Cloud PCs tab that the provisioning status is changed from Provisioned to moving region or network.
You can view the status in the All Cloud PCs list during the move. Once the cloud move is completed, you will notice that the status is changed to provisioned. The Cloud PC device records will be the same in the Entra ID, Intune admin centre and Cloud PC (User).
You can validate the status from the Cloud PC inside the Intune Portal. Clicking on the device will get you a detailed message. A move completed notification appears on the device’s Overview page. Under Device action status, you can also see the status for Action Move with the status showing complete and Date/Time.
End Users Experience – Cloud PC Movement
The first step is to get access to the Cloud PC, The End users can access their Cloud PCs in different ways, The end-user experience will be similar for the Cloud PC, either joined to Entra ID, or hybrid Entra ID joined cloud PCs.
Here, the Cloud PC will show the message “Your admin is updating your Cloud PC. You can use it again after it’s finished.” The Cloud PC will be inaccessible during this time, and the process will take some time to complete, In my case, I have seen it take around 5 minutes.
Once the movement process is completed, A status message in Your Cloud PCs will appear showing “Updated”. You can now continue to use, your cloud PC.
Author
About Author – Jitesh, Microsoft MVP, has over six years of working experience in the IT Industry. He writes and shares his experiences related to Microsoft device management technologies and IT Infrastructure management. His primary focus is Windows 10/11 Deployment solution with Configuration Manager, Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), and Microsoft Intune.
Is the data (user profile included) on the Cloud PC affected ?