Cloning a Virtual Machine in Hyper-V
You can create a “base” virtual machine with the operating system and applications you want, and then copy its .vhd file to use for quickly creating new virtual machines.
Create a virtual machine and install relevant updates and applications. We will use sysprep to prepare the virtual machine for cloning.
On your virtual machine, extract contents of Windows Server 2003 installlation CD located at [CD]:\Support\Tools\Deploy.cab
- Run the extracted sysprep.exe, acknowledge the warning.
- Check the “Don’t reset grace period for activation” option.
- Make sure Shutdown mode is Shut down.
- Click the Reseal button to shutdown and package.
- Click OK to generate new SID’s.
Once virtual machine shuts down, copy it’s VHD file to alternative location. You can now create a new guest and configure it to use the prepared VHD.
More information and instructions how to use answer file can be found here: http://blogs.technet.com/megand/articles/357570.aspx
