Create and manage Windows VMs

This document details the operations you can perform on a Windows virtual machine (VM). Windows VMs require Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware to boot. To configure UEFI when you create a VM, see Create a Windows instance. For more information about Windows support in Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped, see GDC-supported Windows operating systems.

Create a Windows instance

To create a Windows VM instance, complete the following steps:

1. Create a custom image by importing a Windows installation disk. For instructions, see Import virtual disks.

2. Create a VM instance from the custom image.

3. Enable UEFI firmware for the VM. Windows VMs require UEFI. If you create the VM using the API, set bootType to uefi in your VirtualMachine manifest. Using an unsupported boot type causes the instance to fail to boot:

   apiVersion: virtualmachine.gdc.goog/v1
   kind: VirtualMachine
   metadata:
     name: VM_NAME
   spec:
     # ...
     shieldConfig:
       bootType: uefi
   

   Replace VM_NAME with the name of the VM.

Manage Windows VMs

You can also manage user accounts and reset passwords on Windows instances using the VirtualMachinePasswordResetRequest custom resource. After you've configured credentials, you can connect to a Windows instance using a remote desktop client.

For more information about configuring credentials and connecting to Windows VMs, see Connect to a Windows VM.