packer-windows-vsphere-iso

This repo builds automatically Windows VM templates (Windows 11, Windows 10, Server 2019, Server 2022) for VMware vSphere environment using Hashicorp's Packer using freely available Windows Eval ISOs.

With this repo VM templates for the following Windows operating systems can be built.

• Windows 10 Enterprise
• Windows 11 Enterprise
• Windows Server 2019 Datacenter
• Windows Server 2022 Datacenter

You don't need do pre-download any Windows ISO. Windows ISO files gets download automatically from public sources.

How to use this repo

Pre-requesites

Download or git clone https://github.com/andif888/packer-windows-vsphere-iso.git this repo and make sure you have Packer Version 1.7.1 or later installed. If you don't know Packer, it's a single commandline binary which only needs to be on your PATH.

Step 1: Adjust variables

Rename the file variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl.sample to variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl and adjust the variables for your VMware vSphere environment. Some documentation on each variable is inside the sample file.

mv variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl.sample variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl
nano variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl

Step 2: Init Packer

Init Packer by using the following command. (Spot the dot at the end of the command!)

packer init .

Step 3: Build a VM Template

To build a VM template run one of the provided build-scripts.
For example to build a Windows 11 template run:

./build-11.sh

If you are on a Windows machine then use the build-*.ps1 files.

Optional: Windows Template default credentials

the default credentials after a successful build are
Username: vagrant
Password: vagrant

If you would like to change the default ćredentials before a packer build, then you need to edit the following files:

• variables.auto.pkrvars.hcl
• autounattend.xml

Optional: Install Windows Updates during build

You can optionally install Windows Updates during the build operation. If you would like this feature then you need to edit the windows.pkr.hcl file before the build operation. Please uncomment the following sections:

Line: 11-14

    windows-update = {
      version = "0.14.0"
      source = "github.com/rgl/windows-update"
    }

Line: 163-170

  provisioner "windows-update" {
    search_criteria = "IsInstalled=0"
    filters = [
      "exclude:$_.Title -like '*Preview*'",
      "include:$true",
    ]
    update_limit = 25
  }

After that you have to run packer init . again to automatically download the Packer Windows-Update Plugin.

packer init .

Windows 11 - BypassTPMCheck

Normaly Windows 11 requires a TPM to get installed successfully. VMware vSphere provides a virtualized TPM since Version 6.7 and later. In this repo we do not configure a vTPM in vSphere for Windows 11.
Instead we use a easy workaround to turn off TPM check during Windows 11 installation.
In the autounattend.xml we add some registrykeys which effectively enable the BypassTPMCheck in Windows 11.

    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
        <Order>1</Order>
        <Description>BypassTPMCheck</Description>
        <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassTPMCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
        <Order>2</Order>
        <Description>BypassSecureBootCheck</Description>
        <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassSecureBootCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>
    <RunSynchronousCommand wcm:action="add">
        <Order>3</Order>
        <Description>BypassRAMCheck</Description>
        <Path>cmd /c reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\Setup\LabConfig" /v "BypassRAMCheck" /t REG_DWORD /d 1</Path>
    </RunSynchronousCommand>