Hyper-V VM Starter Template?

[jayarr]

Hello,

I have a test environment involving multiple virtual domain controllers in Hyper-V. How do a make an image of a VM that will also work as a DC? When I export the virtual machine and make new ones off of that I get no bueno errors because the GUIDs are the same. I need to make multiple virtiual machines, preferably starting from a set point like the second reboot after WS2008R2 install.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

[cluberti]

You need to run sysprep on the parent VM (and don't install any roles beforehand - just install the OS, patch, and run sysprep). Once sysprep completes and shuts down the VM, you will now have your "parent" VHD you can use to create new VM copies or differencing disks off of. You can use dism from the command line to enable/install roles if you want to do it in an automated fashion later on, or you can simply use the GUI if it isn't a server core OS (but for DCs, I would strongly recommend considering server core, especially virtualized hosts).

[jayarr]

Thanks. That is exactly what I needed.