Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine · Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine by Herman Arnedo – Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine When we have to build Servers

Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine by Herman Arnedo –www.hermanarnedo.com

Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine When we have to build Servers for many different scenarios, it sure is helpful to have a base Windows OS Image

handy to start with. Even though it seems simple, I thought I would share my personal experience and “How To”

steps to help those who are still somewhat new to this process. I happen to use Hyper-V for all of my virtualization

stuff so my instructions will be based on this.

The first thing I take into consideration is the versions of Windows Operating Systems that I plan on using during my

testing, learning and demos.

Based on the different scenarios that I tend to evaluate, I happen to need the following:

Windows 7 Base Image Virtual Machine

Windows 8.1 Base Image Virtual Machine

Windows 2012 R2 Base Image Virtual Machine

Since the process of building the image is pretty much the same for all above operating systems, you will not need to

follow all the examples.

Here are my “How To” Steps:

1- On your computer, open Hyper-V Manager 2- In Hyper-V Manager, in the actions pane, click New and then click Virtual Machine 3- In the New Virtual Machine Wizard, on the Before You Begin page, click Next

http://hermanarnedo.com/step-3-creating-a-windows-7-base-virtual-machine-step-by-step-guide-835/

http://hermanarnedo.com/step-4-create-a-windows-8-1-base-virtual-machine-885/

http://hermanarnedo.com/step-5-create-a-windows-2012-r2-base-virtual-machine-961/


4- On the Specify Name and Location page, in the Name field, type en_base_windows_8.1, and then click Next

5- On the Specify Generation page, click Generation 2, and then click Next.


6- On the Assign Memory page, in the Startup Memory field, type 1024, select the Use Dynamic Memory for this

virtual machine check box, and then click Next.


7- On the configure Networking Page select your internet connection, and then click next


8- On the connect Virtual Hard disk page , on the Specify Name and Location, in the Name field, type

en_base_windows_8.1.vhdx, confirm that the Location field is set to YOUR LOCATION, and then click Next.


9- On the installation options page, select install an operation system from a bootable image file , click browse to your ISO files location


10- On the Completing the Virtual Machine Wizard page, click Finish. Virtual machine named en_base_windows_8.1 is created.


11- On your computer, in Hyper-V Manager, right-click the en_base_windows_8.1 virtual machine, and then click

Settings. 12- Click Memory. In the details pane, confirm that Enable Dynamic Memory is selected, and in the startup RAM field,

type 1024, in the minimum RAM field type 1024 and in the maximum ram field accept your default configuration.


13- Click Processor. You can modify the number of virtual processors based on the number of processors on your physical computer. In my case 8


14- Start the VM and press any key to start the installation boot


15- On the Which type of installation do you want? Page, select custom



16- In the type a computer name field, type base


17- On the Express Settings page, select use express settings


18- Create a local account


19- In the username field, type User. In the Type a password Field, type P@ssw0rd. All the passwords in these guides will be Pa$$w0rd


20- Well done! Now we have the windows 8.1 ready!

21- Open a windows Explorer console and create a new folder c:\TEMP. We will use this folder to save different files that we will use in this lab.



22- Go to Sysinternals website and download PStools suite. Save the files on C:\Temp


23- Unzip the files and Copy all the files to C:\windows\system32



24- Run a Command Prompt as an Admin and execute psgetsid and accept the license agreement


25- Now you can see your Computer`s SID, copy the SID. This number has to be unique for each computer


26- Create a new notepad file and save in C:\temp. Rename the file with your SID number


27- Open windows firewall window and Turn Off windows firewalls in all your networking locations


28- Open the computer management console, expand system tools, expand local users and groups and Delete the local User account that we created before


29- Now it`s time to use SYSPREP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577 Windows operating system installations include many unique elements per installation that need to be "generalized" before capturing and deploying a disk image to multiple computers. Sysprep seeks to solve these issues by allowing for the generation of new computer names, unique SIDs, and custom driver cache databases during the Sysprep process

30- Go to C:\windows\system32\sysprep and Execute Sysprep 31- Select Generalize and Shutdown.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577


32- When the sysprep process has finished. Open the Hyper-V Manager console and delete the virtual machine. We only need the Virtual Hard disk.


33- Go to the location of your base hard disk and configure as Read-Only

34- Now we have a new Windows 8.1 Base virtual Machine that we will use in the next Step by Steps Guides.

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Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine · Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine by Herman Arnedo – Creating a Windows 8.1 Base Virtual Machine When we have to build Servers