vSphere Virtual Machine Administration - Documentation - VMware

vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
Customize Windows During Cloning or Deployment in the vSphere Web Client
You can customize Windows guest operating systems for the virtual machine when you deploy a new virtual
machine from a template or clone an existing virtual machine. Customizing the guest helps prevent conflicts
that can result if virtual machines with identical settings are deployed, such as duplicate computer names.
You can prevent Windows from assigning new virtual machines or templates with the same Security IDs (SIDs)
as the original virtual machine. Duplicate SIDs do not cause problems when the computers are part of a domain
and only domain user accounts are used. However, if the computers are part of a Workgroup or local user
accounts are used, duplicate SIDs can compromise file access controls. For more information, see the
documentation for your Microsoft Windows operating system.
IMPORTANT The default administrator password is not preserved for Windows Server 2008 after customization.
During customization, the Windows Sysprep utility deletes and recreates the administrator account on
Windows Server 2008. You must reset the administrator password when the virtual machine starts the first
time after customization.
Prerequisites
Verify that all requirements for customization are met. See “Guest Operating System Customization
Requirements,” on page 79.
Start the Guest Customization wizard when you clone a virtual machine or deploy from a template. See “Clone
a Virtual Machine in the vSphere Client,” on page 68 or “Deploy a Virtual Machine from a Template in the
vSphere Client,” on page 74.
Procedure
1 On the Select clone options page of the Clone Existing Virtual Machine wizard, select Customize the
operating system and click Next.
2 Type the virtual machine owner’s name and organization and click Next.
3 Enter the guest operating system's computer name.
The operating system uses this name to identify itself on the network. On Linux systems, it is called the
host name.
Option Action
Enter a name a Type a name.
The name can contain alphanumeric characters and the hyphen (-)
character. It cannot contain periods (.) or blank spaces and cannot be
made up of digits only. Names are not case-sensitive.
b (Optional) To ensure that the name is unique, select Append a numeric
value to ensure uniqueness. This action appends a hyphen followed by
a numeric value to the virtual machine name. The name is truncated if
it exceeds 63 characters when combined with the numeric value.
Use the virtual machine name The computer name that vCenter Server creates is identical to the name of
the virtual machine on which the guest operating system is running. If the
name exceeds 63 characters, it is truncated.
Enter a name in the Clone/Deploy
wizard
Generate a name using the custom
application configured with vCenter
Server
The vSphere Client prompts you to enter a name after the cloning or
deployment is complete.
Enter a parameter that can be passed to the custom application.
46 VMware, Inc.