Edit a Pool

You can edit your environment's pools by using the Horizon Universal Console. You can change certain properties in the pool's configuration as described in the following procedure. Some values such as name and type cannot be changed. For information about settings that are specified during pool creation, refer to: Create a Pool.

Procedure

1. From the Horizon Universal Console, select Pools in the left menu.

2. Select the pool you want to work with and click Edit.

3. In the Edit Pool section, you can update the description and select the pool type.

4. Under the Desktops section, you will see many sub-sections. Under the Destination sub-section it will display the pool's configure Site, Horizon Edge, Provider, and the option to Use dedicated host. These values are un-editable for an existing pool.

   • Use Azure availability zones: For Microsoft Azure Pools, you can enable the toggle. When enabled, it allows the VMs for a pool to be distributed across all the availability zones to prevent downtime of all of the VMs in the pool if a failure occurs in a given availability zone. When you enable Azure availability zones when editing a pool, only the VMs created after activation are distributed across the Azure availability zones. Existing VMs are not moved. For information refer to: Microsoft documentation. Note: The Use dedicated host option is not available for Amazon WorkSpaces Core.

   • Enable Hibernate: For both Microsoft Azure and Amazon WorkSpaces Core Pools, you can enable the toggle. Important: Once hibernation is enabled, it can not be disabled. Refer to Hibernate Pools and Virtual Machines (VMs) topic below for more information on Hibernating a pool or VM.

5. In the Desktops section, the Image sub-section displays the Image name.

   • For a Microsoft Azure Pool, you can change the pool's image to a different image by selecting both a Generation type and an Image option for this pool. Both generation 1 and 2 image VMs are supported. If you select V1, only images with a Microsoft Azure generation 1 VM and models that support generation 1 can be selected. Your selection for the Generation type acts as a filter to determine which images are listed in the Image drop-down menu and which models are listed in the Model drop-down menu.

6. Select the Marker of the image selected.

   • For a Microsoft Azure Pool, you must use one or more markers or tags to later edit the pools of an image version. Add the markers if they were not previously added to the image version. For more information refer to: Add Version to an Existing Microsoft Azure Compute Gallery Image. Also see Using Azure Resource Tags and Using Amazon Resource Tags.

   Note: If a marker associated with an older agent version is selected, a warning message is displayed. As a best practice, select a marker with the latest agent version.

7. Select the check box next to Do you have a valid license for this Windows OS and select the next check box to confirm you have an eligible license for this Windows OS.

8. In the VM details sub-section, select values for the Filter Model, Model, Disk type, Disk size, and Encrypt Disks options for your pool.

   For a Microsoft Azure Pool

   • Select a Microsoft Azure VM Model type to use for the pool, or accept the default. The Model setting refers to the compatibility of different Microsoft Azure VM types and sizes with Horizon Cloud. To select a different model, click the X, then click the drop-down menu, and select a model. Refer to: Microsoft Azure VM Types and Sizes for Horizon Cloud (89090) for more information.

   • Use the Filter Model settings to reduce the number of Microsoft Azure VM model options listed, if not the list of models is very long. You can filter the list by Tag, CPU, RAM, Series, GPU Type, and Disk Type. Click + to add other filters. The reduced list will include a subset of models based on your specific requirements.

     Filter	Operator	Description
     Tag	equals	- Recommended: Microsoft Azure VM models that work particularly well for pools. - High Performance: Azure VM models that offer premium disk support. - Custom: Custom tags that can be added and configured by the administrator.
     CPU	equals	The CPU filter uses a from/to range to define acceptable CPU values.
     RAM	equals	Memory uses a from/to range to define acceptable RAM values.
     Disk Type	equals	Use the Disk Type filter to select Premium, which provides premium disk support.

   • You can select a Disk type value based on the VM model selected, and the Microsoft Azure subscription and region.

   • You can change the Disk size value from 127 to 4095 GB. The default Disk size value is 127.

   • If you want to encrypt disks for all VMs in this pool, slide the toggle to Encrypt Disks.

   • Important: Changing the model used by an existing pool will only effect new VMs. Existing VMs in the pool will continue to use the previously selected model.

   • An administrator can label a model as hidden if they do not want the model to be available for new pools however, a hidden model can continue to be used by an existing pool. A model will be marked deprecated if Microsoft Azure no longer provides the model. When editing a pool, if the currently selected model is marked as deprecated, update the model to a different one to allow the pool to create more virtual machines in the future, e.g. when expanding the pool.

9. In the Machine Identity (Domain) sub-section, the pool's configured machine identity is displayed.

   • If the Defer VM availability until hybrid join toggle (available only for Microsoft Azure) is shown, you can enable or disable seamless access to both on-premises and cloud-based resources for the pool. This option is only available if the specified Machine Identity provider is an on-premises Active Directory server.

   • If this existing pool is configured to use your local Active Directory domain, you can change the OU which the pool uses for the machine identities.

   Note: To prevent naming conflicts, when the pool is reusing VM names, the Computer OU field's value cannot be changed. The displayed state of the Reuse VM names option in the Properties sub-section indicates whether the pool is reusing VM names. In case of a Microsoft Entra ID-joined pool, Administrative unit field's value cannot be changed when the pool is reusing VM names.

10. In the Provisioning sub-section, update settings if needed.

    • If pool provisioning is deactivated, you can click Enable to activate pool provisioning again. This option is only available when pool provisioning was previously deactivated for this pool, which can be done with the Provisioning > Disable or Provisioning > Cancel selections.

    • You can change your selection of how VMs are provisioned in the Provision VMs sub-section, between On demand and All at once.

    • You can change the number of Maximum VMs that can be provisioned for this pool.

    • If the On demand option is selected, you can change the number of Minimum spare VMs and Maximum spare VMs.

11. Editing administrator credentials while provisioning a pool: At times an admin will need to edit a pool to provision more VMs. From the console under pools, you can edit the admin credentials (username and password) when provisioning new (additional) VMs. This means that the new VMs pool credentials will be different from the previous (older) VMs credentials.

12. In the Properties sub-section, you can update the following items when editing an existing pool:

    • Use outbound proxy - If you want to route outbound requests to the Internet through a proxy server, enable this toggle and provide the values for proxy host, proxy port, and optional bypass proxy IP addresses (for IP addresses for which the outbound proxy will not be applied). This option is not available when the provider type is Amazon WorkSpaces Core.

    • Time Zone - Select the time zone that the VMs should use and select the check box if the clock should automatically be adjusted for daylight saving time. The time zone setting is not available for multi-session pools. Changing the time zone on an existing pool will only affect newly created VMs. Existing VMs will keep the original time zone setting. This option is also not available when the provider type is Amazon WorkSpaces Core.

    • VM Refresh method - Select Delete VM (Recommended) or Revert to Snapshot. This option is only visible for existing floating single-session pools that are using Revert to Snapshot as the VM refresh method. All newly created pools use the Delete VM method to refresh VMs. As an administrator, you can change existing pools to use the Delete VM (Recommended) option if you have experienced issues with VM refresh reliability. The Delete VM (Recommended) refresh method deletes and recreates a VM after the user logs off. The Revert to Snapshot method takes a snapshot after VM creation and later reverts to that snapshot to refresh the VM after the user logs off. Note that if you select Delete VM (Recommended) and save the pool, this option will not be presented again because you cannot switch from the Delete VM (Recommended) method to the Revert to Snapshot method.

      Note: The Revert to Snapshot operation is not supported by the Amazon WorkSpaces Core cloud provider, so VM Refresh method operations always use the Delete VM (Recommended) option as the refresh type for Amazon WorkSpaces Core desktop pools.

13. (Optional) To manage Resource Tags for Microsoft Azure and Amazon WorkSpaces Core, expand the Advanced sub-section.

    If inherited tags exist, they will be displayed here. Click Add to add a tag that will be applied to the resource groups specific to this pool, click Done when you finish. For more information refer to: Using Azure Resource Tags and Using Amazon Resource Tags.

14. (Optional) To use a Post Customization Script, expand the Advanced sub-section and provide the information needed.

    This optional feature allows admins to run a one time script at the end of provisioning the VMs and before the machine is made available for end users to connect to.

    • Post customization script path (optional): The path to the script that will be run during VM provisioning. Example: C:\windows\system\script.exe

    • Post customization script parameters (optional): Parameters or values required for the script to run successfully. Example: parameter1 parameter2

    • Script execution time (optional): Specifies the duration the system will wait after starting the script on a VM before marking it as available for user sessions. Use this delay to allow scripts to fully execute. This delay ensures that script has enough time to complete, functioning similarly to a fixed static timer.

    • Mark VM deployment as failed if the script fails to start: When enabled, this setting will mark the deployment as failed if the script fails to start. However, if the script starts but encounters an issue during execution, the deployment will still be considered successful.

    Note: The post-customization script will run on only newly provisioned VMs with agent version 25.3.0 or higher. Existing VMs or those with earlier agent versions will not execute the script.

15. Click Next to save your changes and move to the Networks section.

16. In the Networks section, select the virtual networks and tenant (desktop) subnets for Microsoft Azure. Note: The Azure dual-stack option cannot be modified when you edit a pool. For Amazon WorkSpaces Core, select the Availability Zone and Subnet for one or both of the availability zones.

17. (Optional) The Dynamic Environment Manager is an optional feature you can configure.

Hibernate Pools and Virtual Machines (VMs)

When you hibernate a virtual machine, the operating system will run a suspend-to-disk action. The memory content is stored in the OS disk and then the VM is deallocated. Hibernating VMs reduce computing costs by deallocating VMs during periods of inactivity, billing only for storage while hibernating. Users can later resume their hibernated disconnected session where they left off without reopening applications or files. Important: Once the pool is enabled for hibernation, you will not be able to remove that ability from VMs as well.

• Enable Hibernate on Previously Provisioned VM: Ensure that the page file is located on the C: drive. Make sure to Power Off the VM and then resize (edit) it. Choose Hibernate Capable and select the required VM model. Once the resize operation is successful, hibernate is enabled on the VM.

  If you need to move the page file to the C: drive, first refer to: hibernate or resume Microsoft Windows VMs to ensure all Prerequisites and configuration limitations are met.

• Enable Hibernate on Previously Provisioned Pools: Enable hibernate on all the VMs inside the pool via VM resize. To enable hibernate on the pool, you will need to edit the pool. In the console, select Pools from the left menu. Select the pool you want to edit and click Edit. Under the Desktops in the Destination sub-section, enable the Hibernate enabled toggle. Next, select the Hibernate Enabled Image and VM model. Once hibernate is enabled, all new VMs provision in that pool will be hibernate enabled. Important: Once a pool is enabled to support hibernation, you will not be able to remove that ability.

• Single-Session Pool Groups can also be enabled to use hibernation. To set specific Timeout Handling options refer to Step 23 under: Create a Single-session Pool group.