Download the Virtual Machine

Microsoft offers a development virtual machine for free.

Note: Microsoft is currently having an ongoing issue (As of July 15, 2024) where the “vmware image” isn’t available for download. Check the link in step 1 below to see if it is resolved and you can download the developer VM. If not, I put together some workaround instructions here for downloading an iso and installing Windows from scratch:

Windows 11 Installation (Workaround)

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  1. Download the Windows VM from here. Select the appropriate package for your VM platform (VMware):

Download a Windows virtual machine - Windows app development

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  1. Navigate to where you downloaded the VM zip file
  2. Extract it to your host disk.

<aside> 💡 If you downloaded the “VMware” version you should have a folder that contains a .ovf and .vmdk file.

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  1. Open a new VMware Workstation window and click “Open a Virtual Machine”.

  1. Navigate to where you extracted the VM Package and open the .ovf file. This should open a new window called “Import Virtual Machine”. Change the name of your virtual machine to “cloudbreach-windows” and click Import.

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  1. After the VM has been imported click the title of the VM in the VM Player library then click “Play virtual machine”.
  2. Login to the virtual machine.

<aside> 🔐 The user account for the VM does not have a password.

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<aside> 💡 This Windows developer VM will attempt to activate itself and will attempt to reboot after activation. Allowing the VM to reboot is fine.

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  1. Add PowerShell to our taskbar. Click in the search bar on the bottom left of the Windows VM and type “powershell”. Right-click the “Windows PowerShell” app and click “Pin to taskbar”.