Creating a custom specification in VMware

January 11, 2019

Creating a custom specification in VMware

How to create a custom specification in VMWare

When looking to migrate all our servers to Server 2016 the last thing you want to be doing is building each server manually and then installing updates, common software, tweaks etc. The best way to do it is create a template of a base server which includes all the updates installed and everything else you want then you can create a custom spec to make certain alterations to each individual instance.

Mine here is just a basic version which names the hostname of the VM to be the same as the name you called the VM, set the local time zone, local admin password and generate a new SID.

You can go into much more detail and set scripts to run, join the somain, set static IP's etc.

Here are the basics

Create a Custom spec for VM

New machine from template

Give name and location

Choose Host/Cluster

Choose storage

In clone options select “Customise Operating System” this then allows you to create the custom spec

Click New Custom spec

Name the spec and give any further details

Set registration name in Windows

I tend to have the VMname and the windows hostname the same so select the Use VM machine name in this section

Add a server license now if you wish, I have left blank as I will add it once up and running

Set the local admin password

Set time zone

Set any scripts to run once if required

I’m happy for the machine to take a DHCP address initially, I will manually configure these settings later as I make other changes

In the domain section I leave this set as workgroup as I will be joining to the domain manually. This is so my login credentials are not stored here and also if my password changes I don’t have to keep editing the custom spec