Configure

Configure environment variables

Before starting the automated build of a Windows VM, it is important to properly configure several environment variables in your Windows, Mac, or Linux terminals. These variables are crucial as they determine the operating system you will use (Windows 10 or Windows 11), the processor architecture (AMD64 or ARM64), the edition (server or desktop), and the hypervisor (VirtualBox or VMware) for the Windows VM deployment.

Supported environment variables

# Allowed values for $OS_NAME variable.
* windows-10
* windows-11

# Allowed values for $OS_ARCHITECTURE variable.
* amd64
* arm64

# Allowed values for $OS_EDITION variable.
* server
* desktop

# Allowed values for $HYPERVISOR variable.
* virtualbox
* vmware

Set environment variables

In this section, we will set environment variables for building, deploying, and automating the Windows 10 AMD64 desktop operating system using the VirtualBox hypervisor. Similarly, these environment variables can be adjusted to automate the virtual machine deployment for various Windows distributions and versions, as mentioned earlier.

# Store environment variables.
$ export OS_NAME=windows-10
$ export OS_ARCHITECTURE=amd64
$ export OS_EDITION=desktop
$ export HYPERVISOR=virtualbox
$ export VAGRANT_CONF_DIR=./vagrant/$OS_NAME/$HYPERVISOR/$OS_ARCHITECTURE/$OS_EDITION