Overview

This document describes how to prepare an image for the Windows Server 2012 operating system. You can also refer to this document for other versions of Windows Server.

Directions

Preparations

Before preparing and exporting a system disk image, complete the following checks.

Note：

If you need to prepare and export a data disk image, skip this operation.

Checking the partitioning and starting mode of the OS

1. On the desktop, click to open the Windows PowerShell window.
2. In the Windows PowerShell window, enter diskmgmt.msc and click Enter to open the Disk Management window.
3. Right-click the disk to be checked, click Properties, and select the Volume tab to check the disk partitioning mode.
4. Check whether the disk partitioning mode is GPT.
   • If it is, submit a ticket because service migration currently does not support the GPT partition.
   • If not, go to the next step.
5. Start CMD as the admin user and run the following command to check whether the operating system starts in EFI mode:

   bcdedit /enum {current}
   

   A result similar to the following will be returned:

   Windows boot loader
   ID                  {current}
   device                  partition=C:
   path                    \WINDOWS\system32\winload.exe
   description             Windows 10
   locale                  zh-CN
   inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
   recoverysequence        {f9dbeba1-1935-11e8-88dd-ff37cca2625c}
   displaymessageoverride  Recovery
   recoveryenabled         Yes
   flightsigning           Yes
   allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
   osdevice                partition=C:
   systemroot              \WINDOWS
   resumeobject            {1bcd0c6f-1935-11e8-8d3e-3464a915af28}
   nx                      OptIn
   bootmenupolicy          Standard
   

   • If path contains "efi", the operating system starts in EFI mode. In this case, submit a ticket.
   • If path does not contain "efi", go to the next step.

Uninstalling software

Uninstall the conflicting drivers and software (including VMware tools, Xen tools, Virtualbox GuestAdditions, and other software that comes with underlying drivers).

Installing cloud-base

Install cloud-base as instructed in Installing Cloudbase-Init on Windows.

Checking or installing the Virtio driver

1. Click Control Panel > Programs and Features, and enter "Virtio" in the search box.
   • If the result as shown in the following figure is returned, the Virtio driver has been installed.
     
   • If the Virtio driver is not installed, you need to manually install it.
     • For Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard Edition, Datacenter Edition, and Enterprise Edition), Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard Edition), Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Datacenter Edition), and Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Datacenter Edition), download Virtio for Tencent Cloud at:
       • Public network download address: http://mirrors.tencent.com/install/windows/virtio_64_1.0.9.exe
       • Private network download address: http://mirrors.tencentyun.com/install/windows/virtio_64_1.0.9.exe
     • For other system versions, download Virtio for Community Edition.

Checking other hardware configurations

After the migration to the cloud, hardware changes include but are not limited to:

• The graphics card is changed to Cirrus VGA.
• The disk is changed to Virtio Disk.
• The ENI is changed to Virtio Nic, and Local Area Connection is used by default.

Exporting an image

You can use various tools to export an image according to your requirements.

Checking the image

Note：

The image file system that you prepare may be corrupted because you prepared the image without stopping the service or due to other reasons. Therefore, we recommend that you check the image after preparing it.

If the image format is supported by the current platform, you can directly open the image to check the file system. For example, the Windows platform supports images in the vhd format; the Linux platform allows you to use qemu-nbd to open images in the qcow2 format; and the Xen platform allows you to directly open files in the vhd format.

This document describes how to check the VHD images through Attach VHD in Disk Management on a Windows server.

1. On the desktop, right click , and select Computer Management in the pop-up menu.
2. Select Storage > Disk Management to enter the disk management interface.
3. Select Action > Attach VHD at the top of the window.
   
   If the result similar to the following figure appears, the image has been created.