Create a Windows 10 Vagrant box

A short how-to on creating a Windows 10 base box for use with Vagrant and VirtualBox.

Requirements

• Windows 10 VM (activated)

• vagrant user with password vagrant
• 1024 MB Memory
  • APIC on
• 1 CPU
  • PAE on
  • Nested Paging on
• VRAM 128 MB
  • 2D/3D Acceleration off
• Coreaudio Intel HDA
• Sata HDD 40 GB
• Guest Additions installed

• RDP client installed
• Vagrant installed

Important Windows 10 Settings

The following settings are necessary for managing your VM with Vagrant.

Disable UAC and Enhanced Security

Open the Command Prompt as Admin and execute:

# disable uac 
> C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d "0x00000000" /f

# disable enhanced security
> C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v FilterAdministratorToken /t REG_DWORD /d "0x00000001" /f

> C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\UIPI /ve /t REG_SZ /d "0x00000001" /f

Enable Remote Desktop

Open the Command Prompt as Admin and execute:

# enable remote desktop
> C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server" /v fDenyTSConnections /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

# open firewall for remote desktop
> C:\Windows\system32\netsh.exe advfirewall firewall set rule group="remote desktop" new enable=Yes

Enable and configure WinRM

Set network location to Private:

Open secpol.msc and go to Network List Manager Policies > Network and set Network Location to Private.

Open the Command Prompt as Admin and execute:

> winrm quickconfig -q
> winrm set winrm/config/winrs @{MaxMemoryPerShellMB="300"}
> winrm set winrm/config @{MaxTimeoutms="1800000"}
> winrm set winrm/config/service @{AllowUnencrypted="true"}
> winrm set winrm/config/service/auth @{Basic="true"}
> sc config WinRM start=auto

Optional settings for Windows

Open the PowerShell as Admin and execute:

# remove all of the metro apps
> Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppXPackage
 
# remove log files
> Get-Childitem "C:\Windows\Logs\dosvc" | Remove-Item -Verbose
 
# disables the system restore feature
> Disable-ComputerRestore c:
 
# disable hibernation
> powercfg -h off
 
# allow Powershell scripts to provision
> Set-ExecutionPolicy -Force -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Cleanup

Download SDelete and open the Command Prompt as Admin and execute:

# remove recents
> del /F /S /Q %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\*

# clean up disk space
> C:\Windows\System32\cleanmgr.exe /d c:

# zeros out free space
> C:\SDelete\sdelete64.exe -z c:

Now it's time to shutdown windows.

# shutdown windows
> shutdown /s /t 0

Don't forget to remove unnecessary hardware like audio, usb and CD/DVD and set CPU and RAM to the bare minimum.

Create the Vagrant base box

Create the base box:

# create base box from VM
$ vagrant package --base <windows 10 VM name> --output Win10x64.box
 
# add box
$ vagrant box add windows/10 Win10x64.box
 
# check vagrant boxes
$ vagrant box list

Test if it is working

Create and run a test project:

# create project folder
$ mkdir ~/test_project && cd ~/test_project
 
# initialise the Vagrant environment
$ vagrant init windows/10
 
# edit Vagrantfile
$ vim Vagrantfile

Vagrantfile:

# -*- mode: ruby -*-
# vi: set ft=ruby :

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|

  config.vm.box = "windows/10"
  config.vm.guest = :windows
  config.vm.communicator = "winrm"

  # windows installs updates during startup and shutdown
  # larger timeouts hopefully prevents bricking the vm
  config.vm.boot_timeout = 600
  config.vm.graceful_halt_timeout = 600

  # port forward WinRM and RDP
  config.vm.network :forwarded_port, guest: 3389, host: 3389
  config.vm.network :forwarded_port, guest: 5985, host: 5985, id: "winrm", auto_correct: true

  # optional

  # config.winrm.username = "vagrant"
  # config.winrm.password = "vagrant"

  # config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
  #   # vb.gui = true
  #   vb.memory = "2048"
  #   vb.cpus = 2
  #   vb.name = "Windows_Vagrant"
  # end

end  

Run and connect:

# start VM
$ vagrant up
 
# start rdp client
$ vagrant rdp

Done!