How to capture profile customisation when taking a specialized or generalized image of a Windows VM in Azure

Question

How to capture profile customisation when taking a specialized or generalized image of a Windows VM in Azure

Swin 66

Hi All,

I would like more information on customising and saving a specialized or generalized image of a Windows VM in Azure. Step-by-step instructions would be awesome.

When syspreping a Windows VM offline, you would generally boot into audit mode, make your app and profile customisations, then supply a custom answers file as an unattended.xml file with things like CopyProfile = true so that the customisation of the default administrator account is captured to the default profile during the specialisation pass.

However, in Azure, audit mode doesn't work, as you can only connect to the VM via RDP, and this connection method is blocked or disabled.

In addition, Microsoft states in this article (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/generalize#related-content) that customised answer files are not supported, so you can't configure things like CopyProfile in an unattend.xml.

How are profile customisations captured properly for a Windows Azure VM (including all desktop and start bar customisations)? TBH, as far as I can remember, start bar customisations are complex as well, which has been the case forever.

Cheers.

0 comments

1 answer

Your answer

Answer 1

Nikhil Duserla 9,690 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi Swin,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Platform! Thank you for asking your question here.

Please refer to these Create a VM from a generalized image version.

Connect to your VM via RDP and make all the necessary profile customizations, including desktop and start bar customizations.

Ensure that all the customizations are applied to the default administrator account and Run Sysprep.

If you have any further queries, do let us know.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and "Upvote it."

Nikhil Duserla 9,690 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2024-07-10T12:46:53.17+00:00

Hi Swin,

Following up to see if the above answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Nikhil Duserla 9,690 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2024-07-12T05:40:39.64+00:00

Hi Swin,

Following up to see if the above answer was helpful. If this answers your query, do click Accept Answer and Yes for was this answer helpful. And, if you have any further query do let us know.
Swin 66 Reputation points

2024-07-15T11:03:12.7733333+00:00

Hi @Nikhil Duserla , Thanks for this , but your answer doesn't really match my question. I wasn't asking how to create a VM from a generalised image; I wanted to know whether there were any better "best practices" for making the generalised Windows images in Azure in the first place.

The guide I pointed to shows Microsofts current instructions. Still, it states that custom answer files are not supported, which means you can't use the CopyProfile parameter during the sysprep specialization phase of the process. Without this, any new profile will not pick up the customised changes.

Further, when typically preparing a reference image for sysprep, you would use "Audit mode",; however, when bootin' into this mode, RDP is blocked/disabled, meaning you can't make changes. If you need to enable the default administrative profile, this is fine, but it would be good to document that Audit Mode is not supported in Azure.

Lastly, and unless I am mistaken, things like Start Bar customisation are not captured as part of the profile (which has been this way since forever). This was always a pain to replicate to new user profiles.
Nikhil Duserla 9,690 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2024-07-17T07:10:24.11+00:00

Hi Swin,

Thank you for providing information.

Azure doesn’t support custom answer files (like unattend.xml) directly. You’re right that Audit Mode doesn’t work as expected in Azure due to RDP restrictions. Since custom answer files are not supported in Azure, you will need to make customizations manually. Use custom scripts during VM provisioning (Run scripts during provisioning to apply additional customizations).

Regrettably, changes made to the Start bar, such as pinned apps, are not saved as part of the profile during Sysprep.

Share via

How to capture profile customisation when taking a specialized or generalized image of a Windows VM in Azure

1 answer

Your answer