Create a prepared image for Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances

August 4, 2025

Contributed by:

Create prepared images to create an MCS machine catalog. You can create prepared images using:

Studio
PowerShell commands

Key steps

Create the image definition and the initial image versions.
Create image versions from the initial image version.

Use Studio

Create an image definition and initial image version

To create an image definition and the initial image version, do the following:

From Studio, go to the Images node, and click Create Image Definition. Click Next on the Introduction page.
On the Image Definition page, specify the OS type and Session type for the image definition.
On the Image page, select Resources (only the resources applicable for the set connection are listed), a master image to use as a template for creating the image version, and a machine profile for capturing hardware properties from. Select a machine profile to capture hardware properties from a VM instance or launch template version.
Note:
- Before selecting an image, verify that the master image has VDA 2311 or later installed and the MCSIO driver is installed on the VDA.
- The Instance Metadata Service (IMDS) V2 is only supported and not IMDS V1. For information, see How Instance Metadata Service Version 2 works.
On the Machine Specification page, select a machine size. The machine size of the machine profile (selected on the Image page) is selected by default.
On the NICs page, select or add NICs for the preparation image. For each NIC, select an associated VPC subnet.
On the Version Description page, enter a description for the initial image version created.
On the Summary page, check the details of the image definition and the initial image version created. Enter a name and description for the image definition. Click Finish.

Create image versions

Image versions allow for the management of different iterations or updates to a particular image. This functionality enables you to maintain multiple versions of an image for different purposes.

To create image versions from the initial image version, do the following:

Note:

The hosting unit of all the image versions must be the same.

Go to the Images node, select an image version or an image definition, and click Create Image Version.
On the Image definition page, you can change the hosting unit, and reselect the master image and machine profile for that image version.
If you want the configuration of the image version to be different from the initial configured image version, then configure the settings on the Machine Specification and NICs pages of the Create Image Version dialog.
Add a description for the image version. Click Finish.

Note:

If the creation of the image version fails for any reason, the Troubleshoot tab at the bottom provides a Retry option.

Use PowerShell

The detailed PowerShell commands to create a prepared image version spec are as follows:

Check the available image definition names using the Test-ProvImageDefinitionNameAvailable command. For example,
```
Test-ProvImageDefinitionNameAvailable -ImageDefinitionName <string[]>

```

Create an image definition using the New-ProvImageDefinition command. For example,

New-ProvImageDefinition -ImageDefinitionName image1 -OsType Windows -VdaSessionSupport MultiSession
<!--NeedCopy-->

Create a new configuration for image definition in the specified Hosting connection using the Add-ProvImageDefinitionConnection command.
```
Add-ProvImageDefinitionConnection -ImageDefinitionName image1 -HypervisorConnectionName test-conn

```

Create an image version using the New-ProvImageVersion command. For example,

New-ProvImageVersion -ImageDefinitionName image1 -Description "version 1"
<!--NeedCopy-->

Add a master image version spec to the image version using the Add-ProvImageVersionSpec command. For example,

Add-ProvImageVersionSpec -ImageDefinitionName  image1  -ImageVersionNumber  1 -HostingUnitName wsc-MasterImagePath "XDHyp:\HostingUnits\wsc\win10-2411-ami (ami-00123456789abcdef).template”"
<!--NeedCopy-->

Note:

You can add only one master image version spec to one image version for a hosting unit.

Create a prepared image version spec from the master image version spec using the New-ProvImageVersionSpec command. The SourceImageVersionSpecUid parameter is derived from the Add-ProvImageVersionSpec command. For example,

New-ProvImageVersionSpec
-SourceImageVersionSpecUid  00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000
-MachineProfile 'XDHyp:\HostingUnits\wsc\w2022-2411 (lt-00123456789abcdef).launchtemplate\lt-00123456789abcdef (1).launchtemplateversion' -RunAsynchronously
<!--NeedCopy-->

Example of the complete set of Powershell commands to create image definition, image version, and prepared image version spec:

New-ProvImageDefinition -ImageDefinitionName image1 -OsType Windows -VdaSessionSupport MultiSession
 
 
Add-ProvImageDefinitionConnection -ImageDefinitionName image1 -HypervisorConnectionName wsc-CustomProperties $CustomProperties
 
$imageVersion = New-ProvImageVersion -ImageDefinitionName image1 -Description "version 1"
 
$SourceImageVersionSpec = Add-ProvImageVersionSpec -ImageVersionUid $imageVersion.ImageVersionUid `
    -HostingUnitUid $hostingunit.HostingUnitUid `
    -MasterImagePath "XDHyp:\HostingUnits\wsc\win10-2411-ami (ami-00123456789abcdef).template”
 
New-ProvImageVersionSpec -MachineProfile 'XDHyp:\HostingUnits\wsc\w2022-2411 (lt-00123456789abcdef).launchtemplate\lt-00123456789abcdef (1).launchtemplateversion' -SourceImageVersionSpecUid $SourceImageVersionSpec.ImageVersionSpecUid
Add-ProvImageVersionSpecHostingUnit -ImageVersionSpecUid 00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000000-HostingUnitName wsc
$PreparedImageVersionSpec = Get-ProvImageVersionSpec -ImageVersionUid $imageVersion.ImageVersionUid | Where SourceImageVersionSpecUid-eq $SourceImageVersionSpec.ImageVersionSpecUid
<!--NeedCopy-->

Note:

All image version specs in an image definition must belong to the same hosting unit.

An image version can have only one master image version spec and one prepared image version spec.

All image version specs must have a machine profile.

Where to go next

For creating a catalog of Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances, see Create a catalog of Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances

More information

Image management
For Amazon WorkSpaces Core GitHub PowerShell examples, see citrix-mcs-sdk-samples-Amazon WorkSpaces Core

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Create a prepared image for Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances

August 4, 2025

Contributed by:

August 4, 2025

Contributed by:

Create a prepared image for Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances

Key steps

Use Studio

Create an image definition and initial image version

Create image versions

Use PowerShell

Where to go next

More information

In this article