VMware Workstation

Let's open VMware Workstation, and start the process of creating a Virtual Machine. Click on 'New Virtual Machine.'

The new Virtual Machine Wizard shows a couple of options, and we will make sure we are going to be building a 'Custom' Virtual Machine.

Here we have some compatibility options presented to us. For this build, we will be building a current Virtual Machine (so as to take advantage of all the new features).

Let us now choose the appropriate ISO, so that we can take advantage of the SCSI driver automation, and automatic VMware Tools installation that comes with Easy Install.

So now, entering in the product key will help to automate the installation of the Windows XP operating system. The 'Full Name' section will be the owner of the computer, not a user in the Windows XP operating system (that we would have to then clean up if we are making a template). The 'Password' fields MUST be blank. This is so that later on, sysprep works correctly. (Sysprep has an issue clearing out passwords for the administrator account for some reason.)

I like to keep my names shorter than the default name of the Virtual Machine. As you can see, this is going to be short. Notice how the name of the Virtual Machine will be the Display Name (it will be in the Title Bar when you are running this Virtual Machine), and the folder where it will be stored are the same name. This will make it easy to identify the Virtual Machine and its folder later, if you are ever looking to figure out the file/directory structure later on.

When building a template Virtual Machine, less is more. Keep it at a single processor. Later on, you can easily deploy Virtual Machines that have dual processors, or even easily upgrade Virtual Machines from single to multi processor after deployment. It is not easy to downgrade from multi to single processor, and is not supported on some operating systems.

Today, my standard deployment of Windows XP will have 512-MB of RAM. Again, with the template, less is more.