Microsoft's retirement guide says Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, DevTest Labs, and Dev Box "can be used instead" of Lab Services. Each is a good product. None of them was built for one teacher running one class for one term.
What a classroom lab needs
From what Lab Services customers say they rely on, most cited first:
- Hours per student, with a hard stop.
- Student work kept between sessions, or a clean machine each time, chosen per lab.
- A template image the teacher or lab technician builds.
- Class schedules.
- Shutdown on idle, on disconnect, and when a student never connects.
- A teacher's view: who is on, hours used, reset, help a student.
- Sign-in with the college's Microsoft accounts.
- Windows and Linux, in the browser, on weak devices.
- Nested virtualization, isolated networks, and no internet for cybersecurity courses.
How each replacement fits
Azure Virtual Desktop delivers Windows desktops and applications to users, often many users sharing one host. It is strong for college-wide desktops. For labs you would build the per-student machines, the hour limits, the roster, and the teacher's view yourself, and it does not cover Linux desktops the way a Linux lab needs.
DevTest Labs gives developers and testers their own VMs with policies such as auto-shutdown and VM limits. It is the closest to a lab. A Finnish university's 2026 pilot thesis moved a Windows Server course to it and found the work was in the classroom parts, such as exporting student rosters from Entra by hand and keeping each student to the course's 45-hour quota.
Windows 365 is a Cloud PC per user, billed per month. A full month's licence per student is a poor fit for a lab used ten hours a week for part of a term.
Dev Box stopped taking new customers in November 2025 and is being folded into Windows 365.
When building on Azure makes sense
If you have an Azure team with time, a Microsoft agreement, and a large program, building on Azure Virtual Desktop or DevTest Labs keeps everything in one place. Budget for the build, and for someone to run it every term.
If you do not, a product built for classroom labs is less work. That is what Hyperamplify Labs is: hours per student, term end dates, staff-built images, idle shutdown, reset, and Windows and Linux in the browser, priced by the hour from $49 a month.
Request information and tell us what your labs run today.