If you think about it, it is a repetitive task every time you create a VM. After creating the VM, you have to boot from a CD or DVD, or even from the network to start the guest OS installation. The time you have to wait for the installation to finish is another pain. How do management tools make this task easier? They do so by using VM templates.

A template is nothing more than a collection of disk images, VM profiles, and configurations on the VM that will be used to configure VM with minimum interaction and administrative effort. As said before, System Center Virtual Machine Manager has this management out-of-the-box. Now, you will learn how to create your own VM template using all the native tools of Hyper-V and Windows Server.