Solution brief
Windows 365 Management Solution Brief
Two pages on this decision: what to measure, who has to sign it off, and what should be true before you commit. Free, and written to be forwarded.
Get the solution briefSolutions / Windows 365 and Cloud PC
Windows 365 Cloud PC management across every tenant you run, from planning to day two.
Prove the Cloud PC move paid off, group by group.
The rollout is finished, but the Cloud PC estate now lives in four admin centres. Every review starts with a spreadsheet. EtherInsights puts design, deployment, configuration and day two on one record.
14-day free trial on your own tenantRead-only by default
- Baseline kept
- Each Cloud PC user group compared with the AVD or VDI estate it replaced
- Real peaks
- Right-sizing from measured CPU and RAM, not the size you guessed
- Included
- In £0.79 a user, with nothing to deploy
Day two is where Windows 365 gets expensive or calm.
After cutover, the estate lives across four admin centres and nobody can prove cost per group.
What is happening
The estate keeps changing.
Sizing, licences, policies and images drift once users are live.
Why it gets missed
The business case goes stale.
Without the AVD or VDI baseline on the same record, nobody can show what the move saved.
What good looks like
One record per user group.
Sizing, cost against the old baseline, drift and evidence together, across every tenant you run.
Four admin centres become one record.
Each Cloud PC user group with its policy, image, network, licences and drift, then its cost per user against your AVD baseline.
Watch with chapters and transcript
Read the transcript
- One Cloud PC. Forty-one days since Dan Carver last signed in.
- And the bill keeps coming.
- Four admin centres shouldn't stand between you and a clear view of your Cloud PCs.
- EtherInsights brings Intune, Entra, Microsoft 365 and Azure together, showing who uses each Cloud PC and what it costs.
- Find idle machines, review resizing options and reclaim licences.
- In this sample, twelve have been inactive for thirty days or more.
- Test an automation rule with a dry run.
- Twelve matches, and a dry run changes nothing.
- Then approve the changes under your own sign-in, with every action recorded.
- Try EtherInsights free for fourteen days on your own tenant.
- One Cloud PC, 41 days unused, and the bill keeps coming
- Four admin centres, one clear view
- Find idle machines, resize and reclaim licences
- Test an automation rule with a dry run
- Approve under your own sign-in
See Cloud PC lifecycle evidence.
A focused walkthrough of Cloud PC planning, migration, configuration, and day-two evidence in EtherInsights.
Design, deploy, configure and run from one record.
Each user group keeps its old AVD or VDI baseline on the record, so the saving is proved group by group.
Design, licensing and migration baselining
Size user groups, choose images, plan network and storage, check licensing.
Deployment execution and validation
Provisioning assignments, policies and checks in one place.
Configuration and baseline alignment
Manage Cloud PC configuration against a pinned baseline.
Day-two operating control
Connection health, user insight, side-blade troubleshooting.
Windows 365 vs Azure Virtual Desktop, side by side
Both run on Microsoft's Cloud PC and virtual desktop stack, but the operating model is different. Use this table for a first-pass read before an assessment; EtherInsights maps your current AVD or VDI baseline against the Windows 365 model in detail.
| Decision factor | Windows 365 | Azure Virtual Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Persistence | A dedicated, 1:1 Cloud PC per user | Pooled or shared session hosts, with 1:1 personal desktops also possible |
| Admin surface | Microsoft Intune and the Microsoft 365 admin center | Azure portal for host pools and session hosts, plus Intune for device management |
| FSLogix profiles | Not required for most personal Cloud PC assignments | Commonly required to manage user profiles across pooled or shared desktops |
| Pricing model | Fixed per-user Cloud PC licence, sized by vCPU, RAM, and storage | Consumption-based Azure compute and storage, scales with session-host usage |
| UK data residency | Provisioning policy sets the Azure region a Cloud PC is created in | Host pool region choice gives the same Azure region control |
Start here
Prove what your Cloud PC estate costs, in one view instead of four.
See this working on your own tenant.
Four things you can check on your own tenant.
Seats nobody uses. Changes nobody noticed. AI nobody approved. EtherInsights finds all three across your Microsoft estate, gives each one an owner, and keeps the proof. From £0.79 a user a month.
Seats, changes and AI, one price.
Seats nobody uses, changes nobody noticed and AI nobody approved, found in one platform. The waste becomes one annual figure your finance lead can read, with a date to beat: your renewal.
£0.79 per licensed user per month, whole platform
Try it on your own tenant today.
Your tenant, your number, 14 days. Connect read-only and see real findings in the first session.
14-day free trial on your own tenant. Cancel inside the trial.
An owner on every finding.
Each finding says what to cut, who owns it and what it is worth. The savings report tracks what was actually cut.
A savings report with an owner, an action and a value on every line
Nothing fails silently.
Every leaver closed, checked and filed. Every check says what it couldn't read: anything unread shows as "Not read", never as zero. Read-only by default, and changes are opt-in, run under your own admin's delegated sign-in.
ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 42001
A UK software company for the Microsoft estate. Listed by Microsoft as a Windows 365 partner, on Microsoft Marketplace, and certified to ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and ISO/IEC 42001.
About EfficientEther
Prove what your Cloud PC estate costs, in one view instead of four.
Microsoft lists EfficientEther on its Windows 365 partners page.
£0.79per licensed user / month
Whole platform, one price. You pay for licensed users only. A licensed user is an account that is switched on and holds any Microsoft licence, such as E3. Volume and MSP pricing on request.
Take it to the people who decide.
Free documents for this decision, written to be forwarded.
Free handbook
From Legacy VDI and AVD to Windows 365
Assess which VDI and AVD user groups fit Windows 365, build a defensible TCO case, prepare legacy applications, and migrate without losing day-two ownership.
Get the free handbookQuestions people ask first.
Microsoft facts on this page are checked against Microsoft Learn. Glossary of terms
Windows 365 is Microsoft's Cloud PC service. It can replace some virtual desktop infrastructure and desktop as a service patterns, but the right choice depends on persistence, application needs, user experience, and support model.
Guides and analysis on this topic
Read the blog
Windows 365 and Cloud PC · 1 Apr 2026
Which Desktops Should Leave First? A Practical Segmentation Model for Windows 365
Move the predictable majority early and treat true exceptions as a separate design problem.
Read article
Windows 365 and Cloud PC · 4 Aug 2026
AVD to Windows 365 Migration: Comparing Costs and Knowing When to Move
How AVD and Windows 365 costs really compare, when to move personal or pooled desktops, and how the Windows 365 migration API helps. Directional guidance.
Read article
Windows 365 and Cloud PC · 21 Jul 2026
Free Windows 365 TCO Calculator: Check If Migrating From AVD Pays
Use the free Windows 365 TCO calculator to compare your current Azure Virtual Desktop run cost against Windows 365 Enterprise and Flex. Directional, no signup.
Read articleSee it on your own tenant this week.
Start on your own, see it with a practitioner, or ask the question procurement will ask. Every path has a person behind it and a published price.
- TodayConnect read-only in about seven minutes. Nothing in your tenant changes.
- First sessionFindings appear as the scan runs, each with a monthly figure and an owner.
- Day 14Keep the plan or cancel.
See what your Microsoft estate is wasting.
Connect your own tenant with read-only consent. Licence, Azure and Cloud PC findings appear in the first session.
- 14-day free trial on your own tenant
- Read-only by default, actions opt-in
- ISO 27001, 9001 and 42001
Next: sign in with Microsoft and approve read-only access. About seven minutes to connect.
Prefer to see it first? Watch the 90 second tour