Original subtitles

in this video i want to show you how to

install windows 11 inside of a vmware

workstation virtual machine now i know

this is kind of fundamental i know this

is a little bit of a basics baby

beginner video but i do want to get the

saddle away so that we can move on to

bigger and better stuff so with that

said let's get to it so the first order

of business is going ahead and

downloading a windows iso uh you might

be able to do this going to simply

google and then kind of searching for

microsoft windows 11 download super

duper easy and you'll be able to grab it

from the microsoft official website when

you get to this page it offers three

different options for installing or

creating a windows 11 media install the

installation agent will help you upgrade

a device that you are currently using

the installation media will allow you to

kind of put together a bootable usb

drive or cd where you can install this

any word that you'd like or we could

simply download the windows 11 disk

image or iso file that is what we would

like to do because we want to be able to

put this inside of a virtual machine and

you will need to hey make sure you have

all the settings here uh make sure

you're using a 64-bit cpu you are

connected to the internet to download

upgrades etc now we can go ahead and

click on download and that will bring us

to the select product language tab where

we could go ahead and select the

language that we might like to install

this in i am speaking and reading

english so i'll go ahead and click

confirm on that and it will give us this

windows 11 english 64-bit download that

we'll go ahead and click on and now you

can see that's downloading just here

while that is downloading we can go

ahead and download vmware workstation if

you aren't familiar with it vmware

workstation does require a license which

does cost a pretty penny so if you

aren't

in a spot where you could use this maybe

that is something that you might need to

consider virtualbox as a free

alternative is an option however that

requires a little bit more setup to get

windows 11 working and i'll try and post

a video on that as soon as i can okay

now both of these files are downloaded

into my downloads folder you can however

move these into any location that you'd

like i'll go ahead and get started with

the vmware workstation installation if

you haven't gotten that installed

already this is a typical installation

process really you just kind of click

next the entire time except the defaults

however you can make any changes that

you deem appropriate

next

accept next

add to the path we don't need to join

the vmware customer experience

improvement program however i would like

to check for product updates let that

install this may take however much time

it needs

and while that is installing we can go

ahead and move this iso file to any

location we might like to keep it

persistence i'll go ahead and right

click on this and cut it to move it into

a different location and honestly i tend

to move things into a directory that i

just kind of reserve for iso files that

i have downloaded now that i'm in this

directory i can simply paste the file

here and we'll see that that will copy

or move as we need it now that's just in

a safe place why don't i have to worry

about it ever being deleted in my

downloads and i always have it readily

accessible i don't have to re-download

it next time now our vmware workstation

install has completed we can hit finish

on that and we will need to restart our

computer we can go ahead and do that and

i'll see you on the other side

okay my computer has restarted i hope

yours has as well we can now fire up

vmware workstation and if you haven't

already added a license key you might

need to do that but anyway we should see

a display of our library and yours may

very well already be empty here but uh i

will go ahead and right click on that

left hand side click new virtual machine

and then we'll follow the prompts here

now this says welcome to the new virtual

machine wizard what type of

configuration do you want typical is

totally fine uh we will select i am

installing the operating system later

because we'll need to make some other

changes and actually make it so that

windows 11 can install nice and easy on

this virtual machine we'll hit next

after we've selected that we can change

this to a microsoft windows windows 10

and later 64-bit i don't think that

matters too too much however it is good

to do and i'll say windows 11 vm for my

virtual machine name you can put this in

a specific location yours might be

different again you can modify the

default location changing that at edit

preferences and we can again hit next

here now this is asking okay how large

do you want the hard drive to be

personally i like to use 100 gigabytes

for virtual machines that i create

however i have a massive and overly

specked out computer so maybe your room

and space varies splitting the virtual

disk into multiple files is again a fine

option we can again hit next and now

that it is ready to create the virtual

machine we can go ahead and select

finish

and now we can see that our windows 11

vm has been created it's visible on the

left hand side in our library and it's

displayed in the front here we can

before we get started edit the virtual

machine settings because you may

remember we haven't actually added the

iso file for this to be able to actually

boot up to windows 11 and install it and

it also doesn't have some of the

hardware that's necessary for windows 11

to run in fact we need to remember to

add the tpm device or the trusted

platform module we can go ahead and add

that right in the settings here within

vmware workstation so we'll go ahead and

click on add and then we can go ahead to

the very very bottom where it says

trusted platform module but you might

notice the explanation here says the

virtual machine must be encrypted in

using uefi or ufe firmware and we aren't

able to click the finish button here so

this has to be changed just a little bit

if we go into the options and navigate

over to the access control option

there's an option for encryption and it

says this virtual machine is not

encrypted you can protect this virtual

machine's data and configuration with a

password and we can simply click this

encrypt button you can enter whatever

password you might like i will enter

obviously something super secure despite

the fact that this is a virtual machine

and only will live on my machine however

it's still good to do and with that we

can go back to the hardware tab and

simply add our trusted platform module

now we are given a better explanation

that we are allowed to do this and we

can click on finish here now that the

tpm and trusted platform module is

present in our virtual machine we can go

ahead and boot and install windows 11

but first we have to add that iso so we

actually do that so still within our

edit virtual machine settings menu

within vmware workstation we can move

over to the cd or dvd option and

actually go change this physical device

connection to a iso image file which we

will again browse and we can go and

navigate towards where we put our iso

file mine was fnfs isos and now i can

scroll down to where our windows 11

english x64 v1 disk image or iso file is

we'll select open and while we're here

in the settings menu let's actually beef

up our memory i'm gonna bring this to

eight gigabytes you might use whatever's

appropriate you will actually i think

need to still beef up some of the memory

to about four gigs of ram uh and i'll

also add a bit more processors here for

four in my case

hit okay and now we are all set our

windows 11 virtual machine is ready for

us we can click the green play button to

power on this virtual machine and click

into it because it will ask you to press

any key to boot from cd or dvd so i'll

hit enter or space

i'll hit control alt and enter to be

able to full screen this device and you

might be able to do the same if you

wanted to hide the library now we are

all set to install we'll select the

language to english i'll hit install now

if you have a product key or activation

key you might enter that here just for

evaluation sake i'll enter i don't have

a product key down below now on this

page where it's asking hey what version

of the operating system would you like

to install personally i like to scroll

down and select windows 11 pro because

that seems give me the most amount of

features once you hit next you'll be

greeted with the applicable notices and

license terms you can hit the check box

hey i'm totally cool with that i accept

it and move on hit next we'll use a

custom installation to install windows

only because we aren't upgrading

anything we're just putting it on this

virtual machine this drive should

already be set for us with the allocated

size that we selected when creating the

virtual machine we can go ahead and

click next and let windows install this

takes a little bit of time so i will

pause the recording and get back to you

once it's done

okay now it looks like windows has

finished installing and now it's ready

to restart we can go ahead and restart

this virtual machine right now and now

that windows 11 has been installed we

still have to go through all the

boilerplate setting up your account

setting up your device that whole

process your virtual machine might

reboot a second time so we can get to

this process

okay

looks like windows 11 is set and ready

for us we do need to select the right

country region i am in the united states

you can modify that as needed

that's the right keyboard i don't need

to add a second keyboard layout

okay and next we need to enter a name

for our device i will simply call it um

device i guess

pretty creative right

looks like we're rebooting again

now it asks me how would you like to set

up this device i will say for personal

use because i'm not attaching this to

any domain for work or for school uh and

if you need to add a microsoft account

you can however because this is just for

a virtual machine we can say let's give

me some other different sign-in options

and then you can actually choose an

offline account so you don't need to

connect this to your online microsoft

account personally i really hate doing

that

we can skip this for now because they're

trying to convince you hey use a

microsoft account however you really

don't want one you can say who's going

to use this device you'll use this name

to sign into your device i will simply

say admin and i'll create a password

super insecure we'll say admin because

again this is just a virtual machine i

will use for on my sake here for a

security question what is your pet's

name um

i guess my dog's name is bam bam

security question what's the name of the

city you were look i'm not gonna give

all this information out to you on the

internet stop trying to cyber stalk me

you weird threat actors on youtube

next we need to change the privacy

settings for our device we can scroll

through and actually turn everything off

because i don't need my computer to

stalk me anymore that already does and i

believe that is it windows 11 is just

going to check for updates one last time

and hopefully we will reboot and

actually get into our desktop

environment here hi

yep

we're on our way

might take a few minutes almost there

this is taking longer than expected all

right here we are we are in our windows

11 desktop nice however we're not yet

done i'm going to hit control alt and

enter one more time to break out of the

full screen and i'm going to actually

right click on the windows 11 vm at the

very top and select install vmware tools

because i want to be able to copy and

paste in and out of this i want to be

able to resize the screen very easily i

want to be able to drag and drop files

in i want to make that convenient and

nice for me so once i've set that up i

can go ahead and actually run the setup

64 that's displayed when our windows 11

virtual machine realizes okay we've

added that disk in and that will go

ahead and uh after we've ran the setup

64. exe clicking next on all of this of

course we will go ahead and be able to

install vmware tools and get all those

quality of life convenience things added

in there we go now we can see that it

has resized the screen just easily and i

will click finish and it says hey you

have to restart your machine for the

settings to take effect we'll go ahead

and allow this to restart our virtual

machine right now

and with that we now have our windows 11

installed we'll be rebooting to our

login screen enter the password for our

user get a welcome and be able to log

into our desktop and there we are and we

are finished ladies and gentlemen that

is how you can set up a windows 11

virtual machine inside of vmware

workstation and now we can use this

device or any others for anything that

we might like to do with security

research in fact let me add in a little

bit of nugget but at the very end of

this video in case you want to be able

to create multiple windows 11 virtual

machines nice and easy so i will break

out a full screen here and i'll actually

go ahead and turn this machine off i'll

power it down right clicking on the vm

and selecting shutdown guest

and i will right click here and actually

create a snapshot once this is done

shutting down i want to make sure it is

fully off before i do this perfect looks

like it has shut down i will go ahead

and right click on the virtual machine

and select snapshot i'll take a snapshot

and i'll call it fresh install and then

like maybe

with vmware tools i can hit enter to

take a snapshot there and now i'm

actually going to right click this one

more time and change the settings here

i'll go over into the options and i'll

make in the advanced options let's

actually check this enable template mode

to be used for cloning nice and easy so

i can hit ok on that and now this

virtual machine that we've just created

can easily be cloned or recreated

without us having to have to sit through

the entire installation process for

windows 11 and then getting the vmware

tools installed this will make us much

faster when trying to create other

windows 11 devices or machines that we

could use let me show you that process

so i will right click our windows 11 vm

i'll move into manage and i'll click

this clone option here and this is

welcome to the clone virtual machine

wizard this wizard will help you create

a copy of the virtual machine if you

intend for other users to create clones

from this virtual machine you should

enable this as template mode which we've

just done under the vm settings option

advanced now when you're in template

mode you can specify i want a clone from

an existing snapshot which is why we

just created one we made that fresh

installation with vmware tools we can

hit next and we can create a full clone

a full clone is a complete copy of the

original virtual machine at its current

state the virtual machine is fully

independent but requires more disk space

to store and that does mean it's a

completely second virtual machine it's

not linked to or reaching back out to

its original creator normally you could

set that up with a linked clone a linked

clone is a reference to the original

virtual machine and requires less disk

space to store however it cannot run

without access to the original virtual

machine so the original virtual machine

your template still has to exist

but in the case of our windows 11

virtual machine you cannot make a linked

clone of an encrypted virtual machine

now when i hit next we can change the

name to win 11 clone and i'll hit finish

and this will go ahead and clone because

this isn't a linked clone like that

original option that we might have been

able to choose if we weren't encrypting

this operating system this windows 11 vm

then this would go significantly faster

this might take a couple seconds this

takes a little bit but again much much

faster than booting and looping through

all of the installation process setting

up a device setting up the account etc

this i think is still a good thing to do

if you're trying to create multiple

virtual machines which is the flat

vanilla windows install by the way if

you are creating a virtual machine in

template mode so it can be cloned you

can create other copies uh make sure

that you have the hardware settings

exactly how you want them so you don't

have to change them for each one when

you create a new clone make sure it has

the right number of ram make sure it has

the right number of cpus make sure it

has the hard drive that you want the

number of network adapters the

network adapter settings you know the

drill make sure that that is exactly how

you'd like it and now our clone virtual

machine has completed and we could boot

that up if we really want to in our

windows 11 clone but it will be the same

virtual machine that we just created

without us having to have to go through

that install process having to have to

set it all up we could just log in as

the user that we've created and get

straight to our desktop we can do this

for as many machines as we'd like we

could actually do this to set up hey

multiple workstations in like an active

directory environment or set up your own

cyber range or lab for you to experiment

and explore in

log in here as the admin and that is it

we are done we have windows 11 installed

readily accessible inside of a virtual

machine and we can super easy clone this

as needed with that we are finally at

the end of this long beginner friendly

hopefully

basics fundamentals just a quick install

video on getting windows 11 set up

inside of a virtual machine i know this

is specifically for vmware workstation

which maybe some folks don't have access

to because it is a paid you need to have

a license be able to use that software

however i will create another video just

like this for doing this within

virtualbox so thank you so much for

watching everybody hey quick reminder

please do press that like button maybe

leave a comment help the youtube

algorithm and engagement and especially

especially subscribe click that bell

it's super duper helps the channel grow

and i really appreciate it so thanks so

much for watching everybody i hope you

enjoyed this video i hope to see you in

the next one where we get to do some

stuff with our new windows 11 virtual

machine and i love you i'm looking

forward to it i hope you are too i'll

see you then take care

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