Access IT Automation Blog

Little did Microsoft know how much the world would need to rely on something they, in 2015, coined the "Modern Desktop" to describe a Microsoft 365, Windows 10, and Office 365 ProPlus based desktop. Its purpose is to let employees work from anywhere productively as they collaborate with their teammates while always staying up-to-date, secure, and compliant.

Today, I want to have a closer look at what we mean by Modern Desktop Enablement and why it is so crucial for any organization right now.

I heard about "The Great Resignation", a term coined by Anthony Klotz, a business professor at Texas A&M University,  only a few weeks ago. Here in the United Kingdom, we also have other issues we have to deal with right now, like the fallout of Brexit, the lorry driver visa debacle, and now the resulting fuel shortage. So I wasn't paying close attention to the US job market. At first, I couldn't make sense of the two happening simultaneously. But the more I read about it, the more I worry about how enterprises and large organizations will manage their IT in the coming two to three years. 

Internet Explorer, the web browser you either love or hate or both, is being retired by Microsoft (and relatively quickly at that) in favor of Edge, the Chromium-based browser. While most consumers won't feel any discomfort from this, the impact on businesses ranges from security threats to LOB web applications and critical shortcuts not working. This is yet another major IT initiative organizations have to contend with, just like hardware refreshes and migrating to/updating versions of Windows 10, Office/Microsoft 365, etc., not to mention Microsoft's other recent major announcements of Windows 11 and Cloud PC.

We all know that automating the often tedious, lengthy, and expensive user acceptance testing (UAT) is going to result in a much faster process — but how much acceleration can you realistically expect? Today, I want to answer that question by walking you through the real-world results we achieved with a very large international investment bank. 

First, I want to walk you through the actual processes that were being used (both the manual and the automated) and show step-by-step how long each process took manually and how much time the large investment bank saved by switching over to automated processes. Then, let's have a look at the impact this change would have if you either package 500 applications at once or 20 applications per week, every week.

Ever since the introduction of Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), also formerly known as Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), we often get asked what the main differences between this solution and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) are. 

While a variety of vendors have implementations of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), we are going to compare Microsoft’s VDI solution (Azure Virtual Desktop) to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) as this is what people commonly refer to when they say VDI.

Windows Virtual Desktop, which was first announced back in September of 2018 and was GA in September of 2019, was introduced to provide a virtual desktop/app experience using cloud technology. This service enables users to login to a virtual machine from anywhere and have a desktop experience that would feel the same to them as if they were sitting in the office. Enterprises offering Windows Virtual Desktop services would realize savings in licensing, software, and hardware costs.

Most people know that Microsoft had announced that Windows 10 was going to be the last Windows ever released, but what most don't know is that even Windows 10 has had an End-of-Life date from the very beginning. As it says on Microsoft's Windows 10 Enterprise and Education Modern Lifecycle page, "Microsoft will continue to support at least one release of Windows 10 Semi-Annual Channel until October 14, 2025. The below table reflects the released versions to date."

In November 2020, we showed you how you use Access Capture, our automated application packaging and testing solution, to automate your MSIX and app attach creation in order to accelerate your application modernization journey, and with it, enable your Modern Desktop including Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD).

Today, we are thrilled to show you how you can also use Access Capture to automate your VMware App Volumes creation process. App Volumes refers to a set of application and user management solutions that run on VMware Horizon, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, and RDSH virtual environments.