Ok, so you already have an AWS root account. Step 2: Setup an AWS user for this process Here is a guide to get that downloaded and installed. Adding browsers, productivity software, or whatever you might need on it. Install any software you would want in your base image.

Apply all your Windows Updates while its still local so the image is as current as possible.

If there isn’t a password, you also won’t be able to enable RDP.

Make sure you put a password on your accounts.

Enable remote desktop! If you don’t do this, you won’t be able to get into your VM later.

Once the image is built, I recommend taking a few steps to prepare this virtual machine to be a sort of gold image for you up in AWS: I will assume you are converting a VHD as we continue here. While you do this, I recommend selecting VHD as your disk type. I’d suggest building a Windows 10 VM off of your installation media inside of Virtual Box. If you aren’t familiar with it, VirtualBox is a free desktop hypervisor you can use to run VMs locally on your workstation. An easy way to do this is with Oracle VirtualBox.

You need to build your Windows 10 virtual machine locally. You already have Windows 10 install media and licensing – again, home edition won’t work.Most of that time is waiting on an OS to install plus uploads and conversions. Time it: For a 15GB machine, this entire guide can take up to 4hrs to complete, depending on connection speed. We create an AWS EC2 image using our custom AMI.

Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions work fine, but the home edition won’t import. I’ll show you all the steps to get a Windows 10 machine running in AWS EC2. So how do you get yourself a Windows 10 instance running up there? Fear not! Thats what this guide is for. Its true, Windows 10 is not one of the pre-built AMIs offered by AWS. Whatever the case, you went to AWS figuring you’d launch a new Windows 10 instance, and then you realized: Windows 10 isn’t one of the choices. Maybe its for a jump box, maybe its for direct access to some RDS instances or other services. You want a Microsoft Windows 10 instance in your EC2 environment. Posted in AWS, Tech Soup, Virtualization

Build custom windows 10 image vmware