This guide will show you how build a new VM in VirtualBox. We will set up Windows and name the computer, set a primary and secondary DNS, set the correct time, and install apps. In the VM we will also create user accounts and groups for the users, create a department and a backup folder on second drive, login with each user account, create shortcuts, reduce user account control, and turn on remote desktop to PC.

Creating a VM

To build your new VM, open Virtual Box VM and click “new.”

Next, name your VM and for version select “Windows 10 64 bit”. Click next.

Entering RAM Amount

Next you will be directed to enter the RAM amount. You want 4 GB of ram which is equaled to 4000 MB. Click next.

Creating Virtual Hard Disk Drives

Next you will need to create a virtual hard disk. Leave “create a virtual hard disk now” marked and click create.

Select VDI click next.

On the next page click “dynamically allocated”. Click next.

Set the File Location and Size to 30 GB. Click create.

Next you will need to create another Virtual Hard disk with a size of 1 GB. To do this, go to settings.

Go to storage located on the left-hand side, and you are going to click a small disk with a plus sign. When you hover over it, it should say “Adds a hard disk.”

Next a page will pop up, click “create”

It will prompt you to do what you did previously to create your First VDI (see steps above). You will need to click VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click next. Select “Dynamically Allocated” click next. This time, you will give your File and location Size 1 GB. Click Create.

Select choose and your second Virtual Hard drive disk will be created.

Create 2 CPU Core

Next you will want to create 2 CPU Core for your VM. To do this go to System on the left-hand side, go to the “Processor” tab and where it says processors change the amount to 2. Select ok.

Photo: 2 cpu

Add Windows Operating System

We will need to put Windows Operating system on our VM. To do this, go to storage and click the empty disk space and select the disk at the right-hand corner.

Click “choose a disk file” and select Win_Pro_10_1903 the operating system not the server. Select open. Select ok.

The operating system should now show up in your storage. Make sure Live CD/DVD is checked.

Set 1 network adapter in Bridged Mode

Next, we will need to put the network adapter in Bridged Mode. To do this, go to “Network” and where it says “attached to:” select Bridged Adapter. Where it says “Name:” make sure it is set to Wi-Fi connection.

Your VM should look like this:

Now you can start your VM, click start.

Installing Windows 10

Setup

You should see a windows setup screen. Click next.

Click “Install Now”

Next in the window, select Windows 10 Pro, click next.

Next check “I accept the license terms” and click next. You are going to want to click Custom: Install Windows Only (advanced). Next you are going to want to click the drive with unallocated space which would be Drive 0. Click next.

Windows will begin installing. Your screen should look like this:

A screen will now prompt you to enter your region. Leave United States clicked and select “Yes”

For the keyboard layout leave it as “US” and select Yes.

You will be prompted to add a second keyboard layout. Select “skip”

Next you will want to set your account up for an organization. Click Next.

Next you will want to click “Domain Join Instead” In the lower left-hand corner.

For who is going to use the PC, enter the name you choose. Click next. Enter a password, click next. You will then need to enter 3 security questions that you can remember.

Next, on the screen titled “Do more across devices with activity history” click “no”

On the following page to get help from Digital Assistant, click Decline. On the next page you can choose your privacy settings. Accept the defaulted privacy setting by clicking accept.

Formatting Hard disk

Next windows desktop should open on your VM. You will need to format your hard disk now. In the search box on the bottom left corner, type in “disk management” and select “Create and format hard disk partitions” A pop up to initialize disk will occur, select ok.

Right click Disk one and select “simple new volume”

You will be welcomed to the new simple volume wizard. Click next. Leave the simple volume size as its default size. Click next.

On the next page, Assign your drive a letter. Click next.

Next you will give your hard drive a name. I will name mine Data. Click Next. Click finish to complete the new simple volume wizard.

Changing computer name

Next we will need to change the computer name. To do this, in the search box type in “about” and click “about your PC”. In the about section, scroll down until you see “Rename this PC.” Type in the name you want to change it to. In this case, it will be changed to TFLAB01. Click next. You will be prompted to restart your VM. Click restart now. Log back in and you will be able to see that your computer name is updated. Go to file explorer icon (looks like a file) on the task bar.

Go to “This PC” and right-click on it. Click “properties” and you’ll see the name of your computer in “Computer name” section.

Set primary and secondary DNS

To set the primary DNS in the search bar, type in “network connections” and click “view network connections” right click on your ethernet connection. Select properties. Click “Internet Protocol Version 4” Select properties. Click “Use the following DNS server addresses.” And fill in your primary DNS as 1.1.1.1 and secondary DNS as 8.8.8.8. Select ok.

Photo: Primary sec DNS

Set correct date and time

To change your date and time, in the search box type in “date” and select “Date & time settings” turn “set time automatically” off and under “set the date and time manually” click change. From there you can set your date and time and click change.

Installing Apps

Next, we are going to install some programs. First go to ninite.com in your VM. Next you are going to want to select Chrome, TeamViewer15, and Firefox and click “Get Your Ninite” Click run.

You will be asked “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?” select yes. Your installation will begin. When the installation is finished, select close.

Set Chrome as default browser

You will need to set chrome as your default browser. To do this, in the search bar, type in “default apps” Scroll down until you see web browser. Under web browser click the default browser. Under choose an app, select Google Chrome.

You will receive a message before you switch to try out Microsoft edge. Click switch anyway. Now google chrome will be your default browser.

Set homepage to The Tech Foundry website

To set your homepage to thetechfoundry.org in Chrome, go to the three dots in the top right corner. Go to settings.

Under "Appearance," turn on Show Home button. Below "Show Home button," choose to use a custom page. Type in The Tech Foundry website (https://thetechfoundry.org/)

You will see a home button available at the top left-hand side of chrome. When you click on the home button you will be directed to The Tech Foundry website.

Install Adobe Reader

To install adobe reader search adobe reader in google. Select “Adobe acrobat reader DC download”

Click download Acrobat Reader DC (not the pro version which is a trial).

It will begin initializing. Select Run. Click yes (you want to allow this app to make changes to your device). Adobe Reader will begin downloading. Select finish.

Setting Adobe Reader as default pdf

Once the Adobe reader is downloaded, it will give you the option to set it as your default PDF application. Select yes.

It’ll prompt you to a page to set reader as default. Click continue.

Next we will be prompted to click “change”

Click Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and select ok. Select apply and okay.

Download and install Microsoft Teams

To download MS Teams, google “MS teams download for Microsoft 10” and select “Download Microsoft Teams Desktop and Mobile Apps…”

Select download for desktop. Then select download teams. Click run.

It will say installing Microsoft teams. Then it will prompt you to get started. Select get started and you can enter your email address of choice. Teams is officially installed.

Creating user accounts

User accounts enable one to sign into computers. You can create multiple user accounts if you want to share a computer with more than one person (gcfglobal, 2021). To create a user account in the search box, type in “computer management.” Go to “Local Users and Groups” and right click on the Users folder, then click “New User.”

Next, fill in a username and the full name for the user. The first user is going to be named Jane Doe. Their username will be “JaDoe”. Leave “user must change password at next login” checked. Select “Create” and your user will be created. Continue to do this for each user you want to add.

Creating Groups

To create groups, in the search box search “computer management” and under “Local Users and Groups” go to Groups. Right click on Groups and click “New Group.”

From there you can name the group and add the user you want for that group by clicking “add”. We will name this group Marketing and Jane Doe and James Patterson will be assigned to this group. To assign Jane Doe, type in her username “JaDoe” and click “check names”. Select ok. We will also add the admins William Rodriguez and Jenny Park to the Marketing group. The Administrators have access to permissions in all groups. Select apply and ok. Click create. Photo: Marketing Photo: Groups

Creating a folder on drive

To create a folder on the second drive you created earlier, go to file explorer, go to this PC, and then double click on the second drive “Data E:” Once inside, we will create two folders, one named “Department”, and one named “Backup”. To create a folder, right click and select “new” and then click “folder.” Name the folder Department. We will do the same for the Backup folder. Your folders should look like this:

Giving folder access

We will now go into the department folder and create a new folder called Marketing. Once the folder is created, we can give our groups access to the folder. To do this, after the folder is created, right click the folder, and select “properties.” Once in folders properties, go to the security tab and click “advanced.”

We are going to disable inheritance which will allow us to remove certain users and add certain users to give them access to permissions of the folder. Once “disabled inheritance” is clicked a message asking what you would like to do with the current inherited permissions will come up. Click “convert inherited permissions into explicit permissions on this object.” Select apply and ok.

Under the security tab click edit, you can now edit the permissions. Remove “Authenticated Users” and “Users.” Next, we are going to want to add the marketing group which includes the users, Jane Doe and James Patterson and the administrators William Rodriguez, and Jenny Park. Click “Add” and type in the name of the group which in this case will be marketing and click ok. Click Apply and ok. Select ok.

Sign into new user account

To sign into another user account or switch user accounts, click start and click the user icon on the left hand side.

Once clicked, click on the name of the user’s account you would like to sign into. Windows will direct you to sign in. Click sign in. You will be prompted to change your user’s password before signing in. Select ok.

Leave the password field blank. In the new password field enter your password of choice, and then confirm that password. Press the arrow to submit. It will tell you your password has been changed. Select ok. Accept the privacy settings and you will be entered into the desktop. Repeat this step for every new user account you want to sign into.

Copy the marketing staff’s user folders to the backup folder

First, in the Backup folder we created earlier, we are going to create a folder for each of the marketing staff users, Jane Doe, James Patterson, William Rodriguez, and Jenny Park. We will name their folder by their username.

Next, we are going to go to this PC, then go to C: Drive, and finally go to “Users.” You will see a full list of the usernames of all the user’s accounts you have created.

Next we are going to go into the marketing staff user Jane Doe’s (username JaDoe) folder and we will copy her Documents, Downloads, Pictures, and Videos folder into her folder “JaDoe” inside our Backup folder that we created earlier. To do this, hold control and at the same time, click on each of the folders (Documents, Downloads, Pictures, and Videos). Next, right click on the folders and select “copy.” Go to your your Data E: drive and go to your “JaDoe” backup folder and right-click and select “paste” into the backup folder. It should look like this:

Create a shortcut for all users’ desktop

To create a shortcut for all users’ desktop, first go we must create a shortcut. Right click on your desktop screen, click “new” and click “shortcut.” Type https://www.office.com/ for the location of the item. Click next.

Next name the shortcut “office.com” click finish. Once the shortcut is created, go to “File explorer options” click on the view tab and under advanced settings, find “hidden files and folders” and click "Show hidden files, folders, and drives.” Click ok.

Next, go inside the C: drive and go to “Users” then go to “Public” then select “Public Desktop.” You can now copy and paste your office.com desktop shortcut into the public desktop folder, which will create a shortcut for all of your users’ desktop. (superuser, 2016)

Reduce user account control

We are going to reduce the user account control to the second lowest setting. To do this go to the search box and type in “user” and click “Change User Account Control settings.” Bring down to the second lowest setting which should say “Notify me only when apps try to make changes (do not dim my desktop).” Select ok. A message will ask if you if you want to allow this app to make changes to your device, click yes.

Turn on remote desktop to pc

To turn on remote desktop for Windows 10, in the search bar type in “settings” and go to “system.” On the right-hand side scroll down until you find “Remote Desktop.” Click “Enable Remote Desktop.” A message will come up asking you if you want to enable remote desktop. Click confirm.

References

gcfglobal. (2021, March 24). Understanding user accounts. Retrieved from edu.gcfglobal.org: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/windowsbasics/understanding-user-accounts/1/

superuser. (2016, Nov). How to make a desktop shortcut available for all users in Windows 10. Retrieved from superuser.com: https://superuser.com/questions/984866/how-to-make-a-desktop-shortcut-available-for-all-users-in-windows-10

Windows Lab Print

Introduction