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Cover image for Step by Step guide on how to create a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on Azure
Ayo Hassan
Ayo Hassan

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Step by Step guide on how to create a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on Azure

Step by Step guide on how to create a Windows 11 Virtual Machine on Azure.
Sign in to Azure Portal: Go to the Azure Portal (https://portal.azure.com) and sign in with your Azure account. After signing in, your screen will display as shown below.

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Navigate to Virtual Machines: Once you're logged in, navigate to the "Virtual Machines" service on the GUI as highlighted above or you can find it by searching for "Virtual Machines" in the search bar at the top. Once you click on the virtual machine, your screen will be displayed as shown below.

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Then you will click on the "Create" button on the left sidebar (arrowed in red) or the one at the middle. Either one you click will display a drop down as shown below.

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You will then click on the Azure virtual machine highlighted in red arrow. This will take you to the project details where you will begin to fill the basic configuration for you to start creating your virtual machine.

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Basic Configuration:
Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
Resource Group: Create a new one or select an existing resource group. To create a new one, click on the “create new” to give name to your resource group.

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Virtual Machine Name: Enter a unique name for your VM.

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Region: Choose the region where you want to deploy your VM. A region refers to a specific geographical location with data centres that host infrastructure and services. Click on the drop down to select your availability options. Here I chosed (US) East US region. Next is availability zone.

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Many Azure regions provide availability zones, which are separated groups of datacenters within a region. Availability zones are close enough to have low-latency connections to other availability zones. They are connected by a high-performance network with a round-trip latency of less than 2ms. However, availability zones are far enough apart to reduce the likelihood that more than one will be affected by local outages or weather. Availability zones have independent power, cooling, and networking infrastructure. They're designed so that if one zone experiences an outage, then regional services, capacity, and high availability are supported by the remaining zones. They help your data stay synchronized and accessible when things go wrong. To ensure availability of service. Should there be a distruption of service at one zone, I selected zones 1 and 2.

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Security Type: Select the security type you need by clicking on the drop down. Here I selected the “Trusted launch virtual machine”.

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Image: Select the operating system image you want to use for your VM. You will click on the drop down to select the operating system you want for your VM. I selected Windows 11 Pro VM since that is what I want to create.

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Size: Choose the size of the VM based on your requirements and budget. For this purpose, I selected the Standard size.

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Administrator Account:
Username: Enter the username for the administrator account.
Password: Enter the password for the administrator account. Make sure it meets Azure's password requirements.

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Inbound Port Rules: On the inbound port rules section, select “Allow selected ports” and then select RDP (3389). This port will give you remote access to your physical work desktop computers.

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After selecting your inbound port, confirm the Licensing, then click “Next Disk” to direct you to the Disk page.

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Disks and Networking: On the Disk page, click on the OS disk type dropdown and select “Standard SSD” or any disk type of your choice as shown below. Leave the other columns as default. Then click “Next: Network”

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Networking

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The networking page usually displayed as default, so you may wish to leave it as displayed, or chose to change them as you may wish. Therefore, instead of clicking on “Next: Management”, just click on “Tag”.

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Tag: Give your tag a name. Tags are way to label and organize resources in cloud computing environments. The purpose of tags is to provide metadata or additional information that helps in managing, organizing and tracking resources within a cloud infrastructure. Next click on “review+create”.

Review + Create: This review all the settings you've configured for your VM. Once you're satisfied with the “validation passed” and “pricing”, click on the "Create" button to start the deployment process.

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Deployment: Azure will now begin deploying your virtual machine based on the configuration you provided. This process may take a few minutes to complete. Once deployment is complete, click on “Goto resource” to take you to your VM overview .

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On the VM overview, click on “connect”

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Then connect.

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Accessing your VM: You can access your VM by clicking on “Download RDP file”. For Mac users, you may need to download Microsoft Remote Desktop from Mac app store to launch your VM.

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After downloading, you will be prompted to enter your password and click “Continue”. Then you will be welcomed to your VM

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Chose your privacy setting

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You have successfully created a virtual machine on Azure. You can now start using it for your workloads or applications.

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