Workstation Customization by Customer Admins

Customer admins can create custom Windows Workstation images to standardize environments for their teams. This feature allows you to pre-install software, configure settings, and set up specialized tools, then make these customized environments available to specific users or groups.

Overview

The image creation workflow consists of three main steps:

  1. Customize: Start a workstation and install applications, configure settings, or add files as needed
  2. Capture: Create an image from the customized workstation
  3. Deploy: Make the image available to users or groups who can then launch workstations based on it

Common use cases for custom images include:

  • Pre-installing specialized software packages or development environments
  • Configuring domain-specific tools and libraries
  • Setting up standardized configurations for research teams
  • Installing licensed software that requires specific setup

When users have access to custom images, they see them as launch options when creating new workstations. Users can access multiple images if they belong to different groups with varying permissions.

Creating a Custom Image

To create a custom workstation image, customer admins must have access to launch workstations themselves. Follow these steps:

  1. Launch and customize a workstation with your desired software and configuration

  2. Navigate to the job details page of your running workstation. You'll find the "Create Image" button in the job controls as shown below:

    windows-workstation snapshot creation from job details

  3. Configure the image details by clicking "Create Image". This opens a dialog where you'll specify:

    • Name: A descriptive name for your image
    • Description: Details about what's installed or configured
    • Access Options: Select which users or groups can access this image

    windows-workstation snapshot acls

Note: Customer admins can only create images from workstations they own and are currently running.

Monitoring Image Creation

Image creation runs as a background process and can take up to and hour or more depending on the workstation size and customizations. During this time, you can monitor progress through the Workstation Images management screen:

windows-workstation snapshot management

The management screen shows:

  • Image status (creating, ready, failed)
  • Creation timestamps
  • Original job information
  • Available actions (Edit, Delete)

Managing Existing Images

Once created, you can update image properties at any time:

windows-workstation snapshot update

Available management options include:

  • Update descriptions to reflect changes or provide additional context
  • Modify access controls to add or remove users and groups
  • Delete images that are no longer needed (this action cannot be undone)

Building on Existing Images

You can create new images based on existing ones by:

  1. Launching a workstation using an existing custom image as the base
  2. Making additional customizations
  3. Creating a new image from the modified workstation

To do this, the customer admin must have access to the base image, which can be granted during initial image creation or added later through the image management interface.