Your Phase-by-Phase Guide to Migrating from Citrix or Omnissa Horizon to AVD or Windows 365

May 26, 2026

If your organization is planning a VDI migration to Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) or Windows 365 (or you’re already mid-project), you know the pressure is real.

Citrix CVAD and DaaS renewals are at record highs, and Omnissa Horizon licensing costs have followed. Cloud-first mandates are coming down from leadership. The EUC landscape is shifting faster than most IT teams can keep up with, and the window to get ahead of your migration, rather than scrambling through it, is closing fast.

But we’ll let you in on a little secret: the teams that migrate well don’t have more resources than everyone else. They have a better process.

Why Citrix and Horizon Migrations to AVD or Windows 365 Stall (or Fail)

Moving from Citrix or Omnissa Horizon to Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365 is not a lift-and-shift one-time project. Anyone who’s been through one before knows that migrations don’t break because of one thing, they break because identity, imaging, profile management, app compatibility, and broker handoff are all shifting at the same time, and no one is watching the combined effect.

These are some of the most common failure patterns we see:

1. Teams skip baseline metrics. Without capturing logon times, app launch latency, and session reliability before the migration begins, there’s no objective way to declare success or catch regressions before users do.
2. App compatibility testing is informal. A quick “does it run?”, check is not a compatibility program. Legacy applications, GPU-dependent workloads, and anything with specific OS dependencies need a formal triage-to-certify process, not a spot check.
3. Profile migration is underestimated. For organizations migrating from Citrix UPM, VMware Persona Management, or persistent Horizon desktops, the move to FSLogix is a real project. OneDrive Known Folder Move needs to be configured and validated before cutover week (not after).
4. The NetScaler dependency catches everyone off guard. Citrix to AVD migrations almost always underestimate the NetScaler handoff. Plan for twice the time you think you need.
5. Parallel environment windows stay open too long. Open-ended parallel running costs money and creates operational drift. Without a firm decommission date, you’ll be running two environments indefinitely.

Choosing Your Destination: AVD, Windows 365, or a Hybrid of Both

Some organizations migrate entirely to AVD, some go all-in on Windows 365, and some land on a combination of both. The right answer depends on your environment, your application portfolio, and your users, there is not a one-size-fits-all recommendation.

What does drive the decision is user segmentation, and it needs to happen in Phase 1, not Phase 3 (by then, it’s too late).

• Task workers with fixed workflows are strong Windows 365 candidates.
• Knowledge workers with varied application sets typically land better in AVD.
• Power users (developers, designers, and engineers) often need AVD personal or persistent host pools.

Trying to retrofit these decisions mid-migration is expensive in both time and frustration.

Whichever destination you choose, the identity layer is the longest lead-time item in almost every migration. Entra ID readiness, hybrid identity (AD + Entra ID sync), Conditional Access policies, MFA enrollment, and SSO configuration need to be locked down before the first user touches the new environment, not during the pilot wave.

VDI Migration Best Practices: What Successful Teams Do Differently

The migrations that go smoothly share a common thread: they treat migration as a redesign opportunity, not a one-off move. They build validation into every phase and define what “done” looks like for each migration wave before they start it. And they don’t let subjective user feedback (“it feels slower”) substitute for objective performance data.

They also plan for the operations side from day one because Azure cost overruns in months 2 through 6 are nearly universal. Autoscale rules that performed fine in testing often need significant tuning once real user behavior runs against them. Orphaned resources accumulate quietly. Someone needs to own Azure cost governance before the first invoice arrives.

Get the Full Step-by-Step EUC Migration Playbook

We built the EUC Migration Playbook for IT teams who have already made the decision to migrate and need a practical, phase-by-phase guide to do it well.

It covers all five phases of a successful migration:

1. Discover and Baseline
2. Design Your Target Architecture
3. App Compatibility and Remediation
4. Execute the Migration, and Operate
5. Optimize and Govern.

It includes path-specific guidance for teams migrating from Citrix DaaS, Citrix CVAD, and Omnissa Horizon to AVD, Windows 365, or a combination of both. And it tells you exactly what to do and where things go wrong, so you can plan around the landmines instead of stepping right onto them.

This is not a case for why you should migrate. This playbook is for those who have already made the decision to migrate and want to do it right.

Login VSI helps enterprise IT teams validate, manage, and optimize their AVD and Windows 365 environments. Login Enterprise provides continuous testing and performance validation across virtual and physical environments. Hydra provides a familiar and streamlined management layer for AVD and Windows 365, purpose-built for VDI teams moving from Citrix and Omnissa Horizon.