Hints on Creating Windows KVM Templates

Templating Windows is a fairly easy process for KVM. All versions of windows can be resized by SolusVM if using the generation 2 templating system.

Partitions
The most recent versions of Windows usually creates a RESERVED partition when installed. This partition does NOT need to be removed like it does for Xen HVM templates. We suggest a single C: partition to make the template creation process easy. 

If you opt to install Windows as default, the partition to resize will usually be 2, however for Windows XP and Server 2003 no RESERVED partition is created so the partition to resize would be 1. 

Administrator Password
Most version of Windows Server requires an Administrator password to be set on first login. This can make it difficult for you to create a template that contains a datacenter license key because you have to login first. We suggest you set a default Administrator password and specify that in the Default root/admin password box when adding the template to SolusVM. There are also other tools on the internet to prepare a Windows install for cloning, Just Google "Windows sysprep". 

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