AWS Documentation » Amazon WorkSpaces » Administration Guide » WorkSpace Bundles and Images » Bring Your Own Windows Desktop Images

Bring Your Own Windows Desktop Images

If your licensing agreement with Microsoft allows it, you can use your Windows 7, Windows 10 Enterprise, or Windows 10 Pro desktop images for your WorkSpaces. To do this, you must bring your own Windows License (BYOL) and provide a Windows 7 or Windows 10 image that meets the following requirements. To stay compliant with Microsoft licensing terms, run your Amazon WorkSpaces on hardware that is dedicated to you in the AWS Cloud. By bringing your own license, you can provide a consistent experience for your users. For more information, see Amazon WorkSpaces Pricing.

Important

Image creation is not supported on Windows 10 systems that have been upgraded from one version of Windows 10 to a newer version of Windows 10.

To get started, open the Amazon WorkSpaces console and choose Account Settings to enable your account for BYOL.

Requirements

Before you begin, verify the following:

• Your Microsoft licensing agreement allows Windows to be run in a virtual hosted environment.

• You will use a minimum of 200 Amazon WorkSpaces. This is a requirement for running your Amazon WorkSpaces on dedicated hardware. Running your Amazon WorkSpaces on dedicated hardware is necessary to comply with Microsoft licensing requirements.

  If you plan to use GPU-enabled (Graphics and Graphics Pro) bundles, verify that you will run a minimum of 4 AlwaysOn or 20 AutoStop GPU-enabled WorkSpaces in a Region per month on dedicated hardware.

• Amazon WorkSpaces can use a management interface in the /16 IP address range. The management interface is connected to a secure Amazon WorkSpaces management network used for interactive streaming. This allows Amazon WorkSpaces to manage your WorkSpaces. For more information, see Network Interfaces. At least one of the following IP address ranges must be available for this purpose:

  • 10.0.0.0/8

  • 100.64.0.0/10

  • 172.16.0.0/12

  • 192.168.0.0/16

  • 198.18.0.0/15

• You have a virtual machine (VM) that runs a supported 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Windows 10. For a list of supported versions, see the next section in this topic, Windows Versions That Are Supported for BYOL. The VM must also meet these requirements:

  • The Windows operating system must be activated against your key management servers.

  • The Windows operating system must have English (United States) as the primary language.

  • No software beyond what is included with Windows 7 or Windows 10 can be installed on the VM. You can add additional software, such as an antivirus solution, when you later create a custom image.

  • If the VM is running Windows 10, the user profile must be placed in C:\Users\Default.

  • We recommend that you create a WorkSpaces_BYOL account with local administrator access before you share the image. The password for this account may be required later.

Windows Versions That Are Supported for BYOL

Your VM must run one of the following Windows versions:

• Windows 7 Service Pack 1

• Windows 10 Version 1607 (Anniversary Update)

• Windows 10 Version 1703 (Creators Update)

• Windows 10 Version 1709 (Fall Creators Update)

• Windows 10 Version 1803 (April 2018 Update)

Step 1: Enable BYOL for Your Account by Using the Amazon WorkSpaces Console

To enable BYOL for your account, you must specify a management network interface. This interface is connected to a secure Amazon WorkSpaces management network. It is used for interactive streaming of the WorkSpace desktop to Amazon WorkSpaces clients, and to allow Amazon WorkSpaces to manage the WorkSpace.

Note

The steps in this procedure for enabling BYOL for your account need to be performed only once per account, per Region.

To enable BYOL for your account by using the Amazon WorkSpaces console

1. Open the Amazon WorkSpaces console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Account Settings. If your account is not currently eligible for BYOL, a message provides guidance for next steps.

3. Under Bring Your Own License (BYOL), in the Management network interface IP address range area, choose an IP address range, and then choose Display available CIDR blocks.

   Amazon WorkSpaces searches for and displays available IP address ranges as IPv4 CIDR blocks, within the range that you specify. If you require a specific IP address range, you can edit the search range.

   Note

   Specify an IP address range that is outside your internal range.

4. Choose the CIDR block that you want from the list of results, and then choose Enable BYOL.

   Note

   This process may take several hours. While Amazon WorkSpaces is enabling your account for BYOL, proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Run the BYOL Checker PowerShell Script on a Windows VM

After you enable BYOL for your account, you must confirm that your VM meets the requirements for BYOL. To do so, perform these steps to download and run the Amazon WorkSpaces BYOL Checker PowerShell script. The script performs a series of tests on the VM that you plan to use to create your image.

Important

The VM must pass all tests before you can use it for BYOL.

To download the BYOL Checker script

Before you download and run the BYOL Checker script, verify that the latest Windows security updates are installed on your VM. While this script runs, it disables the Windows Update service.

1. Navigate to the following URL to download the BYOL Checker script .zip file: https://d2zdcak60k1ljz.cloudfront.net/BYOLChecker.zip.

2. When prompted, right-click the Download link and choose Save target as.

3. In the Save as dialog box, navigate to the location where you want to save the script file, and choose Save. For example, you can create a folder in Drive C for this purpose, such as C:\BYOL.

4. When a message notifies you that the BYOL Checker script .zip file has finished downloading, choose OK to close the message.

5. Windows Explorer opens in the location where you saved the .zip file. Right-click the file, and choose Extract All.

6. In the Select a Destination and Extract Files dialog box, navigate to the location where you want to extract the script (for example, C:\BYOL\), and choose Extract.

7. If you created a folder for the BYOL script, you can copy the extracted files to the root of the folder.

8. Delete the original .zip files so that only the extracted files remain. Close any open applications and windows (for example, close Windows Explorer and your browser, if they are open).

9. If the VM is running on EC2, enable user data execution before you create an AMI from the instance. If the VM is running on on-premises software, this step is not required.

Perform these steps to run the BYOL Checker script.

To run the BYOL Checker script

1. From the Windows desktop, open Windows PowerShell. Choose the Windows Start button, right-click Windows PowerShell, and choose Run as administrator. If you are prompted by User Account Control to choose whether you want PowerShell to make changes to your device, choose Yes.

2. At the PowerShell command prompt, type the commands required to change to the directory where the BYOL Checker script is located. For example, if the script is located in the BYOL directory, type the following commands. After each command, press Enter:

   cd/

   cd byol

3. Type the following command to update the PowerShell execution policy on the computer. Doing so allows the BYOL Checker script to run:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

4. When prompted to confirm whether to change the PowerShell execution policy, type A to specify Yes for all.

5. Type the following command to run the BYOL Checker script:

   .\BYOLChecker.ps1

6. If a security notification appears, press the R key to run once.

7. In the Amazon WorkSpaces Image Validation dialog box, choose Begin Tests.

8. After each test is completed, you can view the status of the test. For any test with a status of Failed, choose Info to display information about how to resolve the issue that caused the failure. If any tests display a status of Warning, choose the Fix all Warnings button.

9. If applicable, resolve any issues that cause test failures and warnings, and repeat steps 7 and 8 until the VM passes all tests. All failures and warnings must be resolved before you export the VM.

10. The BYOL script checker generates two log files. These two files are located in the directory that contains the BYOL Checker script files and are named as follows:

    BYOLPrevalidationlogYYYYMMDDT

    ImageInfo.text

    Do not delete these files. If an issue occurs, they may be helpful in troubleshooting.

Step 3: Export the VM from Your Virtualization Environment

To create an image for BYOL, you must first export the VM from your virtualization environment. The VM must be on a single volume that is at least 10 GB and smaller than 80 GB. For more information, see the documentation for your virtualization environment and Export Your VM from its Virtualization Environment in the VM Import/Export User Guide.

Important

Before you export the VM from your virtualization environment, verify that the VM meets the requirements for running Sysprep. However, do not run Sysprep. Amazon WorkSpaces runs Sysprep as part of the BYOL image creation process. For information about Sysprep, see Sysprep (System Preparation) Overview in the Microsoft documentation.

Step 4: Import the VM as an Image into EC2

After you export your VM, review the VM Import/Export Requirements for importing Windows operating systems from a VM. You can use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) import-image command or the ImportImage API operation to import your VM into Amazon EC2 as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). For more information, see Importing a VM as an Image in the VM Import/Export User Guide.

Step 5: Create a BYOL Image by Using the Amazon WorkSpaces Console

Perform these steps to create an Amazon WorkSpaces BYOL image.

Note

To perform this procedure, verify that you have permissions to:

• Call Amazon WorkSpaces ImportWorkspaceImage.

• Call EC2 DescribeImages on the EC2 image that you want to use to create the BYOL image.

• Call EC2 ModifyImageAttributes on the EC2 image that you want to use to create the BYOL image.

For more information, see Changing Permissions for an IAM User in the IAM User Guide.

To create an image from the Windows VM

1. Open the Amazon WorkSpaces console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Images.

3. Choose Actions, Create BYOL Image.

4. In the Create BYOL Image dialog box, do the following:

   • For AMI ID, click the EC2 Console link, and choose the EC2 image that you imported as described in the previous section (Step 4: Import the VM as an Image into EC2). The image name must begin with ami- and be followed by the identifier for the AMI (for example, ami-5731123e).

   • For BYOL image name, type a unique name for the image.

   • For Image description, type a description to help you quickly identify the image.

5. Choose Create.

   While your image is being created, the image status in the image registry of the console appears as Pending. If the image validation does not succeed, the console displays an error code. When the image creation is complete, the status changes to Available.

Step 6: Create a Custom Bundle From the BYOL Image

After your BYOL image is created, you can use the image to create a custom bundle. For information, see Create a Custom WorkSpaces Bundle.

Step 7: Register a Directory for Dedicated WorkSpaces

To use BYOL images for WorkSpaces, you must register a directory for this purpose. To do so, perform these steps.

To register a directory for dedicated WorkSpaces

1. Open the Amazon WorkSpaces console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/.

2. In the navigation pane, choose Directories.

3. Select the directory and choose Actions, Register.

4. In the Register directory dialog box, for Enable Dedicated WorkSpaces, choose Yes.

5. Choose Register.

If you have already registered AWS Directory Service for Microsoft Active Directory or an AD Connector directory for WorkSpaces that does not run on dedicated hardware, you can set up a new Microsoft Active Directory or AD Connector directory for this purpose. You can also deregister the directory and then reregister it as a directory for dedicated WorkSpaces. To do so, perform these steps.

Note

You can only perform this procedure if no WorkSpaces are associated with the directory.

To deregister a directory and reregister it for dedicated WorkSpaces

1. Open the Amazon WorkSpaces console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/workspaces/.

2. Terminate existing WorkSpaces.

3. In the navigation pane, choose Directories.

4. Select the directory and choose Actions, Deregister.

5. When prompted for confirmation, choose Deregister.

6. Select the directory again and choose Actions, Register.

7. In the Register directory dialog box, for Enable Dedicated WorkSpaces, choose Yes.

8. Choose Register.

Step 8: Launch Your BYOL WorkSpaces

After you register a directory for dedicated WorkSpaces, you can launch your BYOL WorkSpaces in this directory. For information about how to launch WorkSpaces, see Launch a Virtual Desktop Using Amazon WorkSpaces.