In this Windows 365 guide, we will start by detailing the Windows 365 requirements that need to be met. Differentiating between using a Windows 365 Business license or a Windows 365 Enterprise license.

Windows 365 Business Requirements

The Windows 365 Business license is designed especially for small and medium‑sized companies with a maximum of 300 Cloud PC seats. This license is especially intended for organizations that want to provision cloud desktops for their users in a simple and straightforward way.

To deploy Windows 365 Business in your environment, you need the following basic requirements:

• An operational Entra ID environment (formerly known as Azure AD) where all our user accounts will be stored.
• Windows 365 Business licenses, as many as cloud desktops you need to provision.

You can purchase these licenses through the following options:

• On the Windows 365 webpage itself.
• Through the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Once the licenses have been purchased, simply assign them to the corresponding users and follow the instructions in this guide to provision Cloud PCs for our users. The entire process can take approximately 30 minutes.

If you are interested in Windows 365 Business licenses, you can skip to the next post in this guide where we will cover the differences between Windows 365 licenses. In this article, we will continue discussing the Windows 365 requirements for the Enterprise license.

Windows 365 Enterprise Requirements

The Enterprise license offers all the features of the Business license, plus additional capabilities. It is mainly intended for organizations that need to connect their Cloud PCs with other corporate resources hosted in Azure or connected to that Azure subscription. The main requirements are as follows:

• An operational Entra ID environment (formerly known as Azure AD) where all our user accounts will be stored.
• An operational Microsoft Intune environment that is running normally.
• Licencias de Windows 365 Enterprise.
• For each user, the following licenses are required: Microsoft Intune + Windows E3 + Microsoft Entra P1. These licenses are already included in several packages, such as Microsoft 365 E3/E5, F3, or Microsoft 365 Business Premium. With education licenses, they are available in the following models: Microsoft 365 A3/A5 and Microsoft 365 Education Student Use Benefit.

Depending on your environment, you might also need the following optional requirements:

• An Azure subscription to host the Cloud PCs in our VNET.
• Site‑to‑Site VPN connectivity or ExpressRoute to access corporate resources that are not hosted in Azure.
• On‑premises AD if we are going to deploy virtual desktops in a hybrid environment.
• An operational Microsoft Entra Connect environment configured to synchronize a hybrid Entra ID setup.

These requirements are not always necessary. For example, if we are going to host our Cloud PCs in Microsoft’s datacenters, it will not be necessary to have any resources configured in our Azure subscription. Everything will depend on the scenario we are in.

Which License Is Right for Me?

It is crucial to carefully evaluate each case to decide which license is most suitable. The main question we need to ask ourselves is how our users should access the company’s information. For example, if our users work without using a VPN (or similar) when they are out of the office, they can probably use Windows 365 Business. In any other case, we will need to acquire Windows 365 Enterprise licenses for our users.