Deploy a Windows on Arm virtual machine on Microsoft Azure
Introduction
Create Windows on Arm virtual machine in Azure cloud
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Deploy a Windows on Arm virtual machine on Microsoft Azure

If you don’t have access to a Windows on Arm device, you can create a Windows on Arm virtual machine in the Azure cloud.

Note

These same instructions can be used to deploy a Linux image on the Arm Virtual Machine. Simply select a Linux distribution instead of Windows.

Create a Windows on Arm Virtual Machine

Microsoft Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. You can log into Azure using either your personal subscription or your organization’s subscription.

To begin:

  1. Login to your Azure account.
  2. From the Azure search bar, begin typing the word “virtual machines” until the Virtual Machines service appears as a selection.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure portal top navigation bar showing the search field with “virtual machines” typed in and the Virtual Machines service appearing in the search results dropdown

  1. Select Virtual Machines.

The Virtual Machines page appears.

  1. Click Create > Azure virtual machine.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Virtual Machines page in Azure portal showing the Create button with a dropdown menu where you select Azure virtual machine to begin creating a new VM instance

The Create a virtual machine page appears.

  1. Select a valid Subscription.
  2. Select a Resource group - Optional; you may leave blank.
  3. Enter a Virtual Machine name - We’ll call it armtest-0 for this example.
  4. Select a Region - For best performance, select the region closest to you.
  5. Select Standard for Security Type.
  6. Select See all images - You can find this under the Image dropdown.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Create a virtual machine form in Azure portal showing the Basics tab with fields for Subscription, Resource group, Virtual machine name, Region, Security type, and the Image dropdown with See all images link highlighted

The Marketplace page appears.

  1. Enter windows 11 into the search bar and press enter.
  2. Click the Image Type filter and select Arm64.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure Marketplace showing the search results for Windows 11 with the Image Type filter menu open displaying the Arm64 checkbox to filter for Arm-based VM images

You are presented with all available Arm VM images.

Note

Note all the different Arm images (Windows and others) Azure provides; feel free to experiment with different Arm images from the Azure Marketplace upon completion of this learning path.

  1. From the drop-down at the bottom of the Microsoft Windows 11 Preview arm64 tile, select Windows 11 Professional 24H2 - Arm64.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure Marketplace showing the Microsoft Windows 11 Preview arm64 tile with the dropdown menu expanded to select the Windows 11 Professional 24H2 - Arm64 image option

Upon selection, you are returned to the Create a virtual machine screen with your architecture set to Arm64 and your image set to Windows 11 Professional, version 24H2 - ARM64 Gen2.

  1. For Size, select Standard_D2ps_v5 - 2 vcpus, 8 GiB memory.
Note

The VM size suggested for this learning path is enough to demonstrate Windows on Arm in the Azure cloud, but may need to be adjusted to support other workloads. For more information rightsizing your VM instances, please see Rightsize to maximize your cloud investment with Microsoft Azure .

  1. For Username and Password, provide values which will be used to login to the Windows virtual machine.

  2. For Inbound port rules > Public inbound ports, select Allow selected ports and choose RDP (3389) from the drop-down menu.

  3. For Licensing confirm that you have an eligible Windows 10/11 license with multi-tenant hosting rights. To learn more about this checkbox, please visit documentation .

  4. Leave all other settings as default.

  5. Click Review + create.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Create a virtual machine page showing the Review + create button at the bottom after completing the configuration form for the Windows on Arm VM instance

The validation and confirmation page appears.

  1. Upon review and validation of your settings, select Create to launch your Windows on Arm virtual machine.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the validation page showing the Create button that you click to deploy the configured Windows on Arm VM to Azure after reviewing the configuration summary and pricing estimate

At this point, Azure will deploy your new Windows on Arm instance to the Azure cloud. This may take a few moments to complete.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure deployment progress page showing the deployment in progress status with a progress indicator for the Windows on Arm VM being provisioned

Upon completion, your screen will look similar to:

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure deployment completion page showing the success message and Go to resource button after the Windows on Arm VM has been successfully deployed to the cloud

  1. Click Go to Resource.

From this resource page, note the Public IP address of your virtual machine, as you will use in the next step to connect to your VM instance.

Image Alt Text:Screenshot of the Azure VM resource overview page highlighting the Public IP address field in the Essentials section which you will need to copy for RDP connection

Connect to your Windows on Arm VM

  1. On your local host PC, launch your RDP client application.
Note

In our example, we use the Remote Desktop Connection app as our RDP client, but you may choose any RDP client to use.

  1. Enter the Public IP Address you wrote down earlier as the Computer or remote host/IP to connect to.

  2. Enter the username and password you set earlier while creating the VM instance.

  3. Click connect.

Image Alt Text:RDP

You can now interact with the VM in the same way as you would a local desktop.

If you have issues connecting to your instance, see this Microsoft article:

Explore your VM

Open Control Panel > System, and verify that Device > System Type identifies as an Arm-based processor.

Image Alt Text:System

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