Eliminate Desktop Rebuilds by Containerizing Applications
Application containers help organizations ensure employees can be productive in minutes – not hours – during an outage
When Microsoft introduced Windows 365 Reserve at Ignite 2025, it addressed a challenge that many organizations have struggled with for years: providing employees with rapid access to a secure desktop environment during an unexpected outage.
Windows 365 Reserve gives organizations access to on-demand Cloud PCs that can be activated when employees are unable to access their primary devices or desktop environments. Whether the disruption is caused by a cyberattack, infrastructure failure, natural disaster, or another business continuity event, Windows 365 Reserve provides up to ten days of Cloud PC access, allowing employees to remain productive while normal services are restored.
From day one, Cloudpager has helped customers maximize the value of Windows 365 Reserve by enabling applications to be dynamically delivered to newly provisioned Cloud PCs. Rather than spending valuable time rebuilding desktop environments during a crisis, organizations can provide users with immediate access to the applications they need.
At Microsoft Build 2026, Microsoft announced several enhancements to Windows 365 and Windows 365 Reserve, including support for Windows Autopilot provisioning. This represents an important step forward for Windows 365 Reserve because it enables additional customization options that were previously unavailable.
Combined with Cloudpager, Autopilot support creates a powerful foundation for rapid disaster recovery.
The Hidden Challenge of Disaster Recovery
Standing up a Cloud PC is only part of the equation.
The real challenge is delivering a complete workspace that includes the applications employees need to perform their jobs.
Although Intune has made significant improvements in application deployment speed and reliability, most enterprise applications are still traditional Win32 applications. These applications typically require installation packages to be downloaded, extracted, and installed onto the operating system.
Provisioning a Windows 365 Reserve Cloud PC may take only 20 to 30 minutes, but equipping that desktop with 20, 30, or even 50 applications can significantly extend the time before an employee can begin working.
In a disaster recovery scenario, every minute matters.
Turning Windows 365 Reserve into a Ready-to-Work Desktop with Cloudpager
Cloudpager dramatically reduces the time required to make a newly provisioned Cloud PC productive.
Instead of installing dozens of applications during provisioning, organizations only need to deploy the lightweight Numecent client software. Once the user signs in, applications can be delivered dynamically within seconds or minutes – depending on the size and complexity of the application.
This approach eliminates much of the traditional desktop build process and allows users to access their applications almost immediately.
Cloudpager’s patented prefetch technology further optimizes first-launch performance by intelligently delivering application components before they are needed(a solution we refer to as “paging”). Thus the name Cloudpager. This capability can be especially valuable during an outage when access to roaming data, remotely stored user profiles, or network resources may be constrained.
The result is a faster path from “desktop available” to “employee productive.”
The demo video above shows applications managed via Cloudpager Workpods but Cloudpager can be used to publish applications directly to Intune too. This feature enables Admins to manage containers just like any other Win32 application while getting the benefits of containers such as faster application delivery, eliminating application conflicts, eliminating update failures, consistently clean uninstalls, enhancing application security, and more. To see Cloudpager’s Intune Storefront integration, check out this video:
Don’t Leave Legacy Applications Behind
Many organizations still depend on critical legacy applications that are difficult to modernize, package, or redeploy.
These applications often become a major obstacle during disaster recovery planning.
If a cyber incident requires physical PCs to be isolated or removed from the network, access to business-critical legacy applications can disappear.
Cloudpager helps solve this problem by packaging applications into Cloudpaging containers that can run on modern Windows platforms without requiring extensive re-engineering. Organizations can make these applications available across physical PCs, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, and Windows 365 Reserve using a consistent delivery model.
This allows even complex legacy applications to function in a modern business continuity strategy.
Establish One Application Strategy for All Desktops
One of the most significant advantages of Cloudpager is that application delivery becomes user-centric rather than device-centric, even for applications designed and packaged by vendors to install to machine-specific locations.
In Cloudpager, applications are assigned to users, not desktops; though applications can be restricted for access on certain groups of devices and containers can be assigned to groups of devices when managed with Intune.
Whether an employee logs into a physical PC, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365 Enterprise, or Windows 365 Reserve, they receive the same applications through the same delivery mechanism.
This simplifies ongoing administration and eliminates the need to maintain separate application strategies for primary and disaster recovery environments.
For IT teams, Windows 365 Reserve becomes less of a special-case solution and more of an extension of the existing workspace strategy. Applications are a case of set it and forget it. Windows 365 Reserve provisioning policies can be maintained by simply configuring the policy to install the latest Numecent client software and the latest supported Windows OS, all other applications will be made available upon user login.
When employee access to their primary physical devices of Azure Virtual Desktops is restored, the Cloud PCs can be returned. When the employees log back into their primary PC their applications will be ready for them making switching between any PC including Windows 365 Reserve Cloud PCs a consistent experience.
Resilience Beyond the Desktop
Business continuity plans must account for more than device failures.
Storage systems, file shares, network infrastructure, and cloud services can all be impacted during a major incident.
Cloudpager supports flexible application storage options, including corporate file shares, Azure NetApp Files, and its own dedicated CDN. This provides organizations with additional resilience options and enables application delivery to continue even when primary infrastructure components such as those file shares are unavailable. Cloudpager can rapidly provision applications directly to Windows desktops without any additional infrastructure required (in other words, emergency desktops don’t require further levels of infrastructure support). Even in extreme cases where your file share needs to be taken offline for any reason, new and existing apps alike can continue to be provisioned in a secure and compliant manner.
Cloudpager itself was also designed with resilience in mind. Its metered licensing model allows previously accessed applications to continue functioning even during significant connectivity disruptions, helping organizations maintain operations through a wider range of failure scenarios and in the event of cloud provider disruptions.
Bringing It All Together
Windows 365 Reserve provides organizations with an effective way to rapidly provision desktops during an outage. The addition of Autopilot support makes the platform even more flexible and easier to customize.
However, desktops alone do not restore productivity.
Applications do.
By combining Windows 365 Reserve with Cloudpager, organizations can dramatically reduce the time required to deliver applications, simplify disaster recovery operations, and ensure employees have access to the tools they need when they need them most.
When every minute counts, the fastest desktop is the one that arrives with the applications already waiting.
To see the platform in action, request a demonstration with our Technical Solutions team using the form below: