I recently fired up a couple of Windows 8 Server Hyper-V VMs to do some testing, and used a dynamically-expanding parent VHD with a couple of differencing disks to do so.
The process was pretty much exactly that of any other Windows operating system:
- Install the operating system
- Patch/install stuff according to taste and requirements
- Run Sysprep with the “Generalise” and “Shutdown” options
- Detach the VHD from the VM
- Mark the VHD as read-only
- Create the new VM and create a differencing disk pointing to the parent
- Fire up the new VM
The OOBE experience was very familiar to previous versions of Windows, except now with that Metro flavouring we’re all going to be getting used to 🙂
Here are some screenshots to prove that the whole experiment wasn’t faked by Microsoft in cahoots with NASA:
The whole process was quick and robust and the two new servers were up and running in no time. So far, loving Windows 8 Server 🙂
I genuinely hope Microsoft continue to innovate with Windows. We all know they took their eye off the ball with Vista (or maybe XP was still good enough) – but anyway, keeping up with (and continuing to challenge) Google and Apple is ultimately good for customers.