This page details the operations you can perform on a Windows virtual machine (VM). For more information on Windows support in Google Distributed Cloud (GDC) air-gapped, see Windows OS support.
Create a Windows instance
Before creating a Windows VM instance, you must create a custom image by importing a Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022 or Windows 10 installation disk. For steps on importing the installation disk, see Import virtual disks.
After the custom Windows image is ready, you can
create a VM instance from the custom image.
Windows VMs require Secure Boot to start, but the gdcloud CLI CLI lacks
the necessary flag to configure Secure Boot during VM creation. You must use the
kubectl CLI against the API or the GDC console to create Windows VMs
instead of the gdcloud CLI. When you create the VM using the API, set enableSecureBoot to true explicitly. For more information on Secure Boot, see
Enable Secure Boot.
Manage Windows VMs
You can also manage user accounts and reset passwords on Windows instances using
the VirtualMachinePasswordResetRequest custom resource. After you've configured
credentials, you can connect to a Windows instance using a remote desktop client.
For details on configuring credentials and connecting to Windows VMs, see Connect to a Windows VM.