Building a Custom Windows OS Template
An admin within an organisation can craft a custom OS template for deploying remote desktops. This also comes in handy for activating your own operating system license.
Follow these steps closely to build a working image—proceed with caution.
Important:
About Disk Partition
1. A custom template needs either a single partition or two partitions: an EFI/Boot partition plus a combined system and data partition.
2. Avoid LVM partitions—they aren’t supported.
3. An incorrect partition layout will break disk auto-resizing and machine naming.
Windows
1. Install "Red Hat VirtIO SCSI pass-through controller
When prompted with "Where do you want to install Windows?", click "Load drivers" and choose the appropriate driver. The storage drive will then appear.
2. Initial Setup
Click I don't have internet when you see "Let's connect you to a network"
Select Continue with limited setup at the "There's more to discover..." screen
Choose any username but leave the password field blank
3. Install Virtio-win drivers and guest agents
After the machine boots and you’ve logged in, navigate to CD Drive E and run Virtio-win-guest-tools. This installs the VirtIO drivers along with the spice vdagent and qemu guest agent. Follow the prompts and click OK to complete the installation.
4. Disable Hibernate
Right-click and select "Run as administrator" to open Command Prompt, then type "powercfg.exe /hibernate off" and press Enter.
5. Enable Shutdown/Restart Windows 10 without Any Prompts
In the registry editor, go to this key HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop.
Create a String Value named AutoEndTasks and set its value to 1.
6. Check if the required service exists and set to "Automatic Start"
- Spice-Vdagent – for support of qemu vnc clipboard
- BalloonSerivce – for guest memory usage stats
7. Install and configure Tightvnc to allow proper VNC connection
Visit https://www.tightvnc.com/download.php and grab the installer for Windows.
Run the installer and disable authentication when it finishes.
Open "TightVNC service configuration" and adjust the settings
8. Enable Shared-drive
Shared-drive enables file sharing among cloud desktops during training sessions, or between a user’s local PC and the cloud desktop. It leverages WebDAV technology. Before using it, you must map the hard drive. The screenshot below shows how.
9. Shutdown your Windows properly
Click the Windows icon in the bottom left, then Power, then Shut down.
Please Note
To add extra optional features such as
- DDWebdav – syncs the Trainer's content folders to every participant machine,
- or DDUpload – for easy file uploads within a DaDesktop machine;
Please contact DaDesktop Tech Support.