Create a Windows Virtual Machine via Azure Portal
Tags: beginners, virtualmachine, devops, azure
Published: 2024-01-03 08:12:33

Hello Cloud Enthusiast, have you tried creating a **virtual machine** yet using the famous **Azure portal**?

To begin with, what is a virtual machine? A virtual machine is the virtualization or emulation of a computer system. Being an emulation, a virtual machine can perform almost all of the same functions as a computer, including running applications and operating systems. It can run on a physical machine and access computing resources.

Follow me as I show you the basic steps to create a virtual machine.

**Step 1:**

Go to https://azure.microsoft.com/, click on the "Start free" button and follow the prompts to create an account.

![azuresignup](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pzud5rpz2hkd65ot7a73.JPG)

**Step 2:**

Once you have an Azure account, sign in to the Azure portal via https://portal.azure.com in your browser. When you are logged in successfully, it should look like this;


![Azureloginpage](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ei9574pmyx99pfrcejm1.JPG)

**Step 3:**

Click on **virtual machine** on the home page and click the down arrow beside **create** and select **create a virtual machine hosted by Azure**


![Step3vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dabslwvkutyfuy3j2pdn.png)

**Step 4:**

Let's begin with creating a resource group by clicking on **Create New**


![Step4vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/p6yoiimiap4oslmzr2ln.png)

I called the resource group **Decemberworkload** and my virtual machine **lawrievm**, any name works too!
On the next few screenshots you will see the options I selected based on my subscription.

 
![Step5vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/fu8tnoza4uc3l3aguwcu.png)


![Step6vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ju6tntaehv70ut5ef9lq.png)

**Step 5:**

Now let's create a username and password for our virtual machine, take note of the password because we will need it to have access to the virtual machine created.

![Step7vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/urpubr5lutqr8p7ea6qe.png)

**Step 6:**

Click on **Review + create** tab next to verify validation, a green check mark will appear on the top left hand screen of the review page followed by a breakdown list of options selected for the disks sizes, networking, management etc - usually they are preset already 


![Step8vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/lk1pp4iomu8ihubp2xau.png)



![Step9vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dtsrtd7znm6zr9ajj2q1.png)

**Step 7:**

Now click the **Create** tab and wait for the deployment to run through 

![Step10vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/94eugentcabp97bt10th.png)

Deployment is complete...Yes! Let us now access the vm created by clicking on **Go to resource** tab 

![Step11vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x9ez85yktxosyac7luzv.png)

**Step 8:**

The status shows the vm is now running. Click **Connect**

![Step12vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n41b7w04g2wo6ymkcpnu.png)

**Step 9**

Next click **Download RDP file** since we are running a Windows vm

![Step13](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/nm9dtbw9npnvytj4hwn5.png)

**Step 10:**

Once the download is complete, open the file and click **Connect**


![Step14vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ypxzampjr4a4odud5ab8.png)

Now enter your password to access the vm

![Step15vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7erk29v5p8etu1zw7k6h.png)


![Step16vm](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/6gm9rkso15inl8csu0sz.png)


Your virtual machine has come to live and is ready for use!!! Yippee!!!

NB: Ensure to delete any resources created on Azure to save cost, remember we are working with the free subscription.

Until then, Happy New Year 2024 and see you on my next post. 
Ciao!😊