I found a way to save greatly save costs/automate deallocation of the gaming VM after being idle for certain amount of minutes. Looking for somebody to help me collaborate and integrate this feature into the setup script.

[TehDomic]

The solution I have tested is going to work like this once it is implemented:

1. Setup script downloads and installs the Azure CLI MSI-file
2. runs the command "az login" for first time authentication (it opens a browser window where you need to login with your Azure account).
3. Import/create a Task Scheduler task in Windows that checks for idle usage in XX minutes, after which, runs a batch file containing the command to deallocate the VM (I opt in to make the task usable for every VM created from the updated script and after testing is complete)
4. Download a batch file onto the VM that runs the following command to Azure CLI:

start "" az vm deallocate --name CloudGaming --resource-group ResourceGroup1
(Of course, we will have to adjust the command/script into fitting a naming standard that uses the same name for the virtual machine and resource group, otherwise it won't work for all installations.) Although, I'm open to other solutions if there might be privacy concerns or other.
Bonus: I put this batch file on the Desktop, so I also can manually run it anytime.

Reply if you want to help bring this feature into reality.

[mcrosson]

I'd very much be interested in this getting added as an official option.