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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- 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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- Navigate to where you downloaded the VM zip file
- 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.
</aside>
- Open a new VMware Workstation window and click “Open a Virtual Machine”.
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- 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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- After the VM has been imported click the title of the VM in the VM Player library then click “Play virtual machine”.
- Login to the virtual machine.
<aside>
🔐 The user account for the VM does not have a password.
</aside>
<aside>
💡 This Windows developer VM will attempt to activate itself and will attempt to reboot after activation. Allowing the VM to reboot is fine.
</aside>
- 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”.