Windows 365 – Moving a Cloud PC

As part of the 2307 service release of Windows 365, moving a Cloud PC has moved from preview into general availability.

By making changes to a Windows 365 provisioning policy, you have the ability to relocate existing Cloud PCs from their current region or Azure network connection (ANC) to a different one.

To ensure minimal disruption to users, it is recommended to execute these moves over the weekend. During the relocation process, the Cloud PCs will be temporarily shut down. Therefore, it’s important to notify your users in advance so they can save their work and log off.

Any new Cloud PCs generated by the updated provisioning policy will automatically be assigned to the specified new region or ANC.

The process itself depends on the join type of Cloud PCs you are moving.

Start off in the Intune admin center and navigate to Devices \Windows 365\Provisioning policies.

Select the provisioning policy and then click Edit next to General.

For Azure AD Join you can either:

• On a Microsoft hosted network, change the Geography and/or Region
• On an Azure network connection, change the ANC used.

If the join type is Hybrid Azure AD join, then you can only change the ANC, obviously you would need an extra ANC to move the devices to.

For my demo, I am moving an Azure AD Join device which is on the Microsoft hosted network, therefore I have to change the Geography and Region. Currently my devices are in United Kingdom in the UK South region.

I have selected to move these to France and into the France Central data centre. Once selected click Next.

Click Update to complete this process.

The next step is to click the Apply region change to existing Cloud PCs.

Click Apply but note what effect this will have on the endpoints.

Before transferring all Cloud PCs to the new region, a backup process is initiated to safeguard their data. This backup may require some time to complete and can commence while the user is actively signed in and using the Cloud PC.

Once the backup process is finished, the Cloud PC is subsequently powered down.

The Cloud PC now undergoes relocation, and during this process, which may span several hours, it becomes temporarily inaccessible.

Throughout the move, you can track the progress by checking the status in the All Cloud PCs section. Whilst moving, the Status will state Moving region or network. The move is considered complete once the status displays Provisioned.

The provisioning policy will reflect the new geography and region immediately after you apply the changes to the policy itself.

Here’s an example on an endpoint where the device has moved to the France Central region.