Operating system image distribution, how to?

Question

I would like some advice on a problem, maybe if someone had experiences about can give me some advice.

The problem is this: in my company there are different developers and all work on virtual machines (Hyper-V), now we would like to create a new virtual machine with Windows 10 and with all programs pre-installed we need (Visual Studio, etc.)...I would like to create an operating system image to be distributed among various users. Each user that starts the system for the first time should be logged in with your account (the PC is on a network domain), and the system should be initialized (desktop, licenses, etc.) from scratch.

Can you tell me if is possible manage something like that and if you know the tools to do something like that?

Thank you in advance for any useful information about it.

Answer 1

You would want to have a Clean Windows 10 machine running in Hyper-V, Not activated.

Install everything that is required and Setup all of your System configurations (those that you would do every single time that you set up a machine). Once complete, Sysprep the Machine (Run C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe This will put it back into an Out of The Box state).

Note: You cannot have the machine added to the Domain prior to the "Generalization" as this would cause a conflict with AD Computer Names once distributed.

After running the Sysprep tool, shutdown the VM. The .VHD / .VHDX of the System Drive of the Machine you had just Generalized can now be Distributed and Used on other Hyper-V machines.

Do hope this helps!