VMware Horizon – Setup Server 2016 Instant Clone Template

Release date: May 26th 2019

Welcome to my VMware Horizon series. Every now and then, my customers throw me a curveball. This time a customer wanted me to set up a Instant Clone Pool with Server 2016 OS. Not as RDS. This is not a very common approach, I usually use Windows 10 for this, but totally doable.The reason the customer wanted it this way, was their licensing-situation, they had limited Windows 10 licenses and “unlimited” server licenses.

Prior to doing this deployment, make sure that “Enable Windows Server desktops” is enabled in VMware Horizon Administrator, covered here: VMware Horizon – Enable Windows Server desktops

In this session I will describe how I setup my Instant Clone template based on Microsoft Windows 2016 Server. As this is quite a comprehensive session about preparing the template, I choose to carve it into these sub-sections:

• Create and customize the VM
• Customize Windows
• Generalize and prepare Windows
• Install Applications and agents
• Optimize Windows
• Prepare for deployment 
• Create Pool and test functionality

VMware Horizon planning, deployment etc.

Disclaimer: Every tips/tricks/posting I have published here, is tried and tested in different it-solutions. It is not guaranteed to work everywhere, but is meant as a tip for other users out there. Remember, Google is your friend and don’t be afraid to steal with pride! Feel free to comment below as needed.