My basic procedure is this:
- Keep a "golden" vm.
- Store this on a host or in a library.
- Only turn it one when it is time to patch.
- Install all updates in the golden vm and make any other required changes.
- Clone the golden vm.
- Delete the old template
- Re-create the template from the Clone
Does that sound reasonable?
One nuisance is that there is quite a lot of work in configuring the template correctly, which has to be done each time it is re-created (domain join, network connectivity, MAC pool, access rights, naming, comments/description, product key, etc.). Is there some way to avoid that?
Another issue I have run into is that when I delete the template from the library, VMM does not seem to delete the underlying vhdx. Is this by design?
Recently, I ended up deleting the vhdx and a folder, which VMM had "left behind" manually in the file system. That was probably not a good idea since VMM subsequently complained when it had to store the vhdx for the new template in the library. I had picked the same name as before, but apparently VMM still had a record of the vhdx so it was a conflict. I got this error:
What was the correct procedure for deleting the template and the vhdx in the library?