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Sysprepping virtual machines

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You might want to create a “base” virtual machine with an operating system and applications, and then copy its .vhd file to use for other virtual machines. Before you make copies of the .vhd, however, it’s important to run Sysprep in the guest operating system. This way, the first time you start a virtual machine that uses a copy of the base virtual machine’s .vhd file, the guest operating system will be assigned a new SID and other identifiers, so you won’t end up with network conflicts between different virtual machines that use the same copied .vhd file.

 

Read all about it in the article I just posted in the "Deployment" category at https://blogs.technet.com/megand/articles/357570.aspx.

 

Please note that Microsoft does not support using a tool other than Sysprep for cloning virtual machines. For more information, see this Knowledge Base article: https://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?id=162001.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Virtualization is big for IT Pros. If you don’t know that yet, you will soon. Watch this blog:
    The...
  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2005
    Megan, thanks for all that you've written so far on Virtual Server as it has been very helpful. A while back, I wrote an article showing how to use the COM API from .NET to automate deployment and testing. The link is here in case you want use any of it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/04/08/VirtualServer2005/
  • Anonymous
    January 21, 2005
    Thanks Ben, I've added a link to your article to my nav pane.
  • Anonymous
    February 08, 2005
    I can use SIDchanger too? It's the same as duplicating workstations or is there something I should know of?