Create a VMware vSphere template for Windows Server 2019

This article guides you through the process for creating a Windows Server 2019 VMware vSphere virtual machine (VM) template.

Prerequisites

Note

This guide assumes that you have some familiarity with VMware vSphere and know how to install Windows Server.

• Make sure you have the latest Windows Server ISO file downloaded.

  • It's recommended to upload the Windows Server ISO file to a vSphere datastore or to vCenter content library for faster development. Note that the ISO file can also be used locally.

• Make sure you have VMware vSphere version 6.5 or above.

Create a Windows Server 2019 VM template

Learn how to deploy and install Windows Server and convert VM to a template.

Deploy and install Windows Server

1. Deploy a new virtual machine.

   

   

   

   

   

   

2. Make sure you select Microsoft Windows Server 2016 or later (64-bit) as the guest OS.

   

3. Point to the Windows Server ISO file location.

   

   

• Power on your new VM and install Windows Server.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Post-installation

Before you convert your VM to a template, complete the following steps.

1. Install VMware Tools and restart.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

2. Perform Windows updates.

3. Change PowerShell execution policy to Bypass by running the Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass command in PowerShell (you can also turn this on later using group policy or a PowerShell script).

4. Allow communication between WinRM and the OS by running the allow_winrm PowerShell script

5. Consider following these extra steps when creating a windows template:

   • Disable user account control (you can also turn this on later using group policy or a PowerShell script).

   • Turn off Windows Defender Firewall (you can also turn this on later using group policy or a PowerShell script).

   • • Disable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC) (you can also turn this on later using group policy or a PowerShell script).

   • Enable Remote Desktop Services.

   • Use PowerShell to install Chocolatey.

     Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
     

   • Install all baseline applications you might want to include in your template.

Convert VM to a template

• Reduce the VM's CPU count and memory resources to the minimum.
• Switch the CD/DVD drive to client device, disconnect it, and convert the VM to a template.