For many people, it might appear as a daunting task to create a Windows VM in Azure and connect using RDP or Remote desktop, but if you follow this guide and carry out the steps in sequence, you’ll find it a lot easier. Follow along to find out how it is done!
First thing first, you should create an Azure portal account with an active subscription. If you don’t have it, please create one. This is essential to get your demographic details and to find out if you have an active credit card. Microsoft will charge a small amount of 2$ or so if you are in America, or another amount depending on the country you choose while creating the account. This nominal fee is however credited back to your account within 3 days.
How to spin up a Windows VM in Azure
Once you have created an Azure account you are ready to play along Microsoft will offer you some credit to your account for 30 days and you can create VMs, databases, and many other services to use and experiment. But a word of “ CAUTION” applies here – whatever you are creating make sure you delete them at the end or once your practice task is completed. As running machines are liable to be charged. Worse it may even charge your credit card so do remember to delete your resources.
Login to your Azure portal and you will land on the following page,
Click on create resource button and select virtual machine as shown below.
Fill in the mandatory details marked as “ * “, select subscription as a free trial, and give a name to a resource group.
Name your virtual machine (VM), and select the region as west US 2 (Free eligible). As we are creating this machine for practice we do not need any redundancy, hence kindly leave availability options. Then move to security type and select standard.
Click on see all images and then select Windows Pro N Version 21H2 which is free and eligible. The image you will select will work as an operating system (OS) on the VM. Then move to Size.
Next, move to administrator account details where you can add the username and password of your choice and do make note of it.
In the end, select the network port that will be used to access the VM. Choose the Allow selected Ports radio button. Hit the drop-down menu next to the Select inbound ports entry and choose the RDP (3389) option.
Leave other tabs like Disks, Networking, Management, Tags to default. Thereafter, switch to the Review + Create tab visible under Create a virtual machine page. Then, scroll down to locate the Create button. When found hit the button to create the virtual machine instance.
You will now see that your VM is in deployment state and once deployed it will show the following message.
When done, click on Go to your resource and then select RDP as the mode of connection.
Download the RDP file and then click to connect.
When prompted, enter the username and password that you saved under the Basics tab while creating the VM.
Click the Continue button to start your Windows VM.
Finally, your Windows VM is started and ready for use, click on Bing browser and check if you are able to reach the internet.
Congratulations you just finished creating your Windows virtual machine (VM), able to access through RDP and access web browser in it.
Hope that helps!
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