Windows 365 is a very useful service that allows Microsoft customers to connect to virtualized Windows operating systems hosted on the cloud. The idea gained popularity during the COVID era, when hybrid work was becoming the norm. Recently, Microsoft announced cloud apps and default VBS and HVCI capabilities in Windows 365 machines. Now, it has revealed another major enhancement in the domain of networking.
The Redmond tech firm has announced the general availability of RDP Multipath for Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD). In a nutshell, what this feature does is that it evaluates multiple UDP network paths frequently and then switches to the one that is the most reliable. This ensures that your RDP connection to a virtualized OS on the cloud is stable, which is critical in areas with poor network conditions. The UDP pathway evaluation method also enforces a backup path that you can automatically switch to if your primary connection experiences a failure.
Microsoft has outlined numerous benefits of RDP Multipath, including minimal configuration changes, dynamic path management that does not wait for a connection to fail, better reliability through redundancy, lower latency, and insights about the connection through the connection bar in the RDP session.
RDP Multipath is currently supported on Microsoft Remote Desktop Client (MSRDC) version 1.2.6074 and the Windows App version 2.0.366.0 or later. The feature is being rolled out gradually across AVD and Windows 365 environments to monitor the impact and benefits through a phased approach. Microsoft believes that this monitoring of real-world insights will allow it to offer the most suitable experience to its customers.
That said, given the fact that this is a general rollout rather than a preview release, it"s likely that the statistics and insights regarding this feature will be quite positive. It"s currently unclear when this deployment of RDP Multipath will be complete, but Microsoft has noted that it will issue a notification once the process has completed.