Skip to content
Technology Knowledge Base

What is VDI?

VDI is short for Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. This means that instead of having a physical desktop PC in the office that you can remotely access from home and directly log in to when you’re at the office, the “desktop PC” is virtual and exists among many other virtual PCs on a handful of large servers in a server room somewhere.

This is a difference that may affect your day-to-day workflow. For example, rather than remote into your PC when at home and log in to your physical machine when at the office, you may remote into your PC (VDI) when working from home AND when working at the office.

Tips for using VDI effectively

Some applications, such as video/audio conferencing on Zoom or Microsoft Teams, will not work when using VDI. Any meetings or calls you try to join through VDI will have poor audio/video quality, or you may not have audio/video access at all. You will need to change your workflow to minimize the VDI connection and instead use your physical (local) PC to join Zoom or Teams meetings.

Applications that have been customized just for you are generally not possible. Here is why:

  • VDI is a set of many identical machines that are reset to default apps on a semi-regular basis.
  • Your “User Profile” (where your desktop shortcuts, documents, preferences, etc. are all saved) is not stored. Make sure you save all work to network drives or OneDrive since user profiles (files and customizations) are not able to be saved.
    • This is because the machine you remote into today will not be the same machine you remote into tomorrow. You may not notice when this happens because all the machines are identical, but it’s important to know. If we installed an application on the machine you’re on today, you’ll be able to use it, but tomorrow you may get a different machine or it will have been reset, and the application will be gone. This is why any requests for new or custom applications on VDI will take longer than if you are using a regular PC, as the application must be added to the “source” of all the machines, and all the machines have to be rebuilt with the new source.
  • Please submit new/custom application requests through your supervisor to tcsupport@ou.edu.

When using VDI, you can be more mobile, as your office PC is only a few clicks away if you know all your passwords and the URL for your VDI. Another benefit of using VDI is that a physical PC at a desk or in a cubicle does not need to be assigned to any one person or cordoned off to allow someone to use it remotely.