Whether I am looking to test out a new capability or solution, or simply grabbing screenshots for documentation, I almost always turn to VMware Workstation in order to quickly and easily deploy a test environment in order to get this done. In this post I will show you how to deploy a test environment in VMware workstation. It is assumed that you are familiar with OS deployments and this will not be covered in this article.

Prepare Base OS VM

Open VMware Workstation and create a new Virtual Machine

I name the template with the OS type and “Template” as the suffix

Install the OS and configure this VM with any necessary customizations or base software.

Shutdown VM and create a snapshot.

Deploy VMs required to stand up test Environment

Create a Clone of the newly created and configured Base OS VM.

When asked for “Clone Source” choose “An existing snapshot” and select the snapshot created in the previous section.

For “Clone Type” choose “Linked Clone” this will allow you to deploy the new VM with limited disk space requirements.

Name the new VM

Click Finish and your new VM is created

Repeat this process for all VMs needed for your test environment. This will quickly deploy your test lab, with a minimum amount of disk space required. I will cover the use of “Teams” in a later article, but these steps can be used there as well.