So in my last post, we went over what hardware I would be using for my mobile lab.  In this post we’re going to go over creating a base template.  Now I know this is redundant not necessary for some people, but it’s always good to document right .

So let’s start by creating a base template for our VMs.  I am going create a 2008 R2 and a Server 2012, but for this blog we’re going to cover the 2008 R2.

First we are going click on create a new virtual machine and select custom

The default Hardware Compatibility is Workstation 9.0, click next and choose to install the OS later

Next we will choose Windows as the guest OS. 

leave the defaults for processor and memory

Select “Do not use a network connection”

For the I/O controller, virtual disk, disk type. and capacity we will leave the defaults

Large files are not a problem so we will change to “Store virtual disk as a single file”

Select a file name or leave the default and click next and then click finish on the summary.

Now that we have the virtual machine ready we will go ahead and load Windows Server 2008 R2.  I won’t bore you with screen shots as I am sure you have done this install 1000+ times.  After the install we will update the OS and run sysprep and select the OOBE and check generalize and select shutdown.  Once the VM is shut down we can go into the advanced options under “edit virtual machine settings” and check “enable template mode”

That’s it for creating the template for now.  In my next post we’ll go through taking a snapshot and deploying a VM.

Thanks for reading!