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Create a prepared image for Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances

October 31, 2025
Contributed by: 
C

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

Key steps

  1. Create the image definition and the initial image versions.
  2. 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:

  1. From Studio, go to the Images node, and click Create Image Definition. Click Next on the Introduction page.
  2. On the Image Definition page, specify the OS type and Session type for the image definition.

  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. On the NICs page, select or add NICs for the preparation image. For each NIC, select an associated VPC subnet.
  6. On the Version Description page, enter a description for the initial image version created.
  7. 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.

  1. Go to the Images node, select an image version or an image definition, and click Create Image Version.
  2. On the Image definition page, you can change the hosting unit, and reselect the master image and machine profile for that image version.
  3. 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.
  4. 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:

  1. Check the available image definition names using the Test-ProvImageDefinitionNameAvailable command. For example,

    Test-ProvImageDefinitionNameAvailable -ImageDefinitionName <string[]>
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  2. Create an image definition using the New-ProvImageDefinition command. For example,

    New-ProvImageDefinition -ImageDefinitionName image1 -OsType Windows -VdaSessionSupport MultiSession
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  3. Create a new configuration for image definition in the specified Hosting connection using the Add-ProvImageDefinitionConnection command.

    Add-ProvImageDefinitionConnection -ImageDefinitionName image1 -HypervisorConnectionName test-conn
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  4. Create an image version using the New-ProvImageVersion command. For example,

    New-ProvImageVersion -ImageDefinitionName image1 -Description "version 1"
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  5. 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”"
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    Note:

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

  6. 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
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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
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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.

Share prepared images across availability zones

You can now share a single prepared image across different availability zones, tied to different hosting units, within the same AWS region for your Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances. This allows you to use one prepared image to create and update MCS machine catalogs in various availability zones.

You can maintain a single prepared image and use it to create and update machine catalogs across multiple availability zones tied to different hosting units. This significantly reduces your image management overhead, ensures consistency across deployments, and streamlines the provisioning process. You can also seamlessly update existing machine catalogs with prepared images from a different availability zone.

Use cases

  • Centralized Image Management: You create a prepared image in one availability zone (for example, us-east-1a). You can then share this image to other availability zones like us-east-1b or us-east-1c within the same us-east-1 AWS region. This allows a single image to serve multiple hosting units and simplifies maintenance for you.
  • Efficient Catalog Creation and Updates: You can use a prepared image created in AZ 1 (for example, us-east-1a) to create new catalogs in AZ 1. After sharing this image to AZ 2 (for example, us-east-1b), you can then use the shared image in AZ 2 to create and update catalogs in AZ 2.
  • Cross-hosting unit deployment: If your environment has multiple hosting units under the same AWS region and AWS account, you can efficiently share prepared images between these hosting units.

Limitations

  • Region-specific sharing: You can only share prepared images across availability aones within the same AWS Region. You can’t share across different AWS regions or different AWS accounts in the current implementation.

Important considerations

  • Deletion order: To delete an original prepared image version specification, you must first delete all its shared image version specifications. Alternatively, you must delete the original and shared specifications simultaneously.
  • Image Version dependency: When you remove an image version, you must first remove any sharing configurations that depend on that specific image version. Catalogs that you created from the original (unshared) image can remain intact.
  • Catalog back-portability: You can update existing machine catalogs that you deployed before this feature’s introduction. Use prepared images that you created in a different availability zone from where you originally deployed the catalog.
  • Complete deletion: When you delete a prepared image, you can no longer use it in any availability zone where you shared or originally created it. Moreover, a prepared image version cannot be deleted until all catalog tied the perpared image version are deleted first.

Prerequisites

Before you configure or use this feature, ensure you meet the following conditions:

  • Your environment must be an Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances environment.
  • You must configure multiple hosting units (each can be tied to different availability zones) within the same AWS Region and under the same AWS Account.
  • You must configure the necessary IAM permission as detailed in the Required permissions section.

Required permissions

To get the account ID for the current connection your AWS accounts must include the following IAM Permissions:

{  
   `"Effect": "Allow",`  
    `"Action": "iam:GetAccountSummary",`  
    `"Resource": "*"`  
}
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Configure using PowerShell

You can share prepared images across availability aones tied to different hosting units using only PowerShell commands currently.

To share a prepared image

  1. Ensure you have the ImageVersionSpecUid of the prepared image you want to share. You can retrieve this using Get-ProvImageVersionSpec or similar Get- commands in PowerShell.
  2. Determine the HostingUnitName of the availability zone where you want to make the prepared image available. This is the name of the hosting unit you configured for that specific AZ.

  3. Run the Add-ProvImageVersionSpecHostingUnit command: Use the following PowerShell command. Replace <ImageVersionSpecUid> with your image’s Uid and <targetHostingUnitName> with the name of the hosting unit in the target availability zone that you want to share the image version specification to:

    Add-ProvImageVersionSpecHostingUnit -ImageVersionSpecUid <ImageVersionSpecUid> -HostingUnitName <targetHostingUnitName>
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  4. After successful execution, you can see the image’s status in the Studio UI indicating that you shared it with the specified hosting unit.

To remove sharing of a prepared image

  1. Ensure you have the ImageVersionSpecUid of the prepared image from which you want to remove sharing.
  2. Determine the HostingUnitName of the availability zone from which you want to remove the shared image.

  3. Run the Remove-ProvImageVersionSpecHostingUnit command: Use the following PowerShell command. Replace <ImageVersionSpecUid> with your image’s Uid and <targetHostingUnitName> with the name of the hosting unit in the target Availability Zone that you want to remove the sharing of the image version specification from:

    Remove-ProvImageVersionSpecHostingUnit -ImageVersionSpecUid <ImageVersionSpecUid> -HostingUnitName <targetHostingUnitName>
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Where to go next

More information

Create a prepared image for Amazon WorkSpaces Core Managed Instances
October 31, 2025
Contributed by: 
C
October 31, 2025
Contributed by: 
C

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