Requirements on VMs and guest operating systems
To customize the guest operating system of a VM, make sure that the VM and guest operating system meet the requirements for VMware Tools and virtual disks.
The latest version of VMware Tools must be installed on the VM or template.
The operating system must be installed on the disk attached as SCSI 0:0 to the VM.
Perl is installed in the guest operating system for Linux.
Prerequisites
A VM customization specification for Windows is created. For more information, see Create VM customization specifications.
A VM customization specification for Linux is created. For more information, see Create VM customization specifications.
Task
Customize the guest operating system when you clone or deploy a VM
Customize a guest operating system
When you deploy a VM from a template or clone an existing VM, you can customize the guest operating system of the VM.
Procedure
Right-click an inventory object in vSphere Client, such as a data center, cluster, vApp, resource pool, or host, and select New Virtual Machine.
In the Select a creation type step, select Clone an existing virtual machine or Deploy from template, and click NEXT.
Follow the on-screen instructions until the Select clone options step appears. In the Select clone options step, select Customize the operating system and click NEXT.
In the Customize guest OS step, apply a customization specification to the VM, and click NEXT.
Option
Description
Select an existing specification
Select a customization specification from the list.
Override configurations in a customization specification
To modify the configurations of the customization specification for the guest operating system, click OVERRIDE, complete the wizard that appears, and then click OK.
In the User settings step, specify the required settings for the VM.
This step appears only if the selected specification requires additional customization.
In the Ready to complete step, check the configurations and click FINISH.
Result
When the new VM starts for the first time, the guest operating system runs scripts to complete the customization. The VM may restart several times during this process.
If the guest operating system stops responding when the new VM starts, the system may be waiting for you to correct errors, such as an incorrect product key or an invalid username. To determine whether the system is waiting for information, go to the VM console.