This New Prism Central 7.5 Feature Is Useful Only If You Run Windows

While working on a real environment in Prism Central 7.5, not reading release notes but actually provisioning and cloning virtual machines, I ran into a feature I had completely missed before. Guest Customization Profiles.

I was not looking for it. I was dealing with the usual post clone fixes on Windows VMs and navigating areas of Prism Central I normally touch only when needed. That is where I noticed it.

At first glance it looks like a generic guest customization framework. That assumption does not last long.

This article explains what Guest Customization Profiles really are, why they exist, and when they make sense in real environments.

Where Guest Customization Profiles live

You find them in Prism Central under Settings and VM Management. They live at the platform level, not inside a specific VM or template.

That already tells you the intent. These profiles are meant to be reused and governed centrally.

What they actually do

Guest Customization Profiles are reusable objects that encapsulate Windows guest customization using Sysprep.

They allow you to define once and reuse consistently:

• Hostname and naming patterns
• Static IP configuration
• DNS and gateway settings
• Time zone
• Domain join parameters
• Run once commands
• Integration with Nutanix Guest Tools

Sysprep itself is nothing new. What matters is that Prism Central treats this customization as a first class object instead of something embedded everywhere.

Why this matters in real Windows environments

Cloning a Windows VM is easy. Making it production ready is not.

After cloning, small but annoying issues appear. Hostnames collide. Domain joins fail silently. Someone forgets to change network settings. These problems show up more often when templates are reused across teams or clusters.

Guest Customization Profiles remove that friction. They do not automate everything. They simply make the boring parts predictable.

The limitation you will hit immediately

My first instinct was to use this for Linux as well. That instinct lasted about ten seconds.

Guest Customization Profiles are Windows only. The UI makes this very clear.

This is not a missing feature. It is a deliberate design choice. Linux customization in Nutanix is handled through cloud init, which already lives in images, templates, or VM definitions. Prism Central does not try to abstract that into reusable profiles.

What to use for Linux instead

For Linux workloads the approach remains unchanged:

• Cloud init in the image or template
• Cloud init passed during VM creation
• Automation tools when workflows become more complex

Guest Customization Profiles are not meant to replace any of this.

How this fits with templates and automation

In my environments I use automation where it makes sense. Calm, APIs, pipelines.

But I do not want a full automation stack just to fix hostnames and domain joins. The model here is simple and effective. Templates define the OS baseline. Guest Customization Profiles define identity and environment specific settings.

When it makes sense to use it

Guest Customization Profiles make sense if:

• You provision Windows VMs frequently
• You want consistent naming and network configuration
• You want reliable domain joins without scripting sprawl
• You manage multiple clusters through Prism Central

They do not make sense if you are Linux only or if all provisioning is already fully automated end to end.

Final thoughts

I like this feature because it knows its limits.

It does one thing well and gets out of the way. It does not try to replace cloud init or Calm. It simply removes a recurring operational annoyance for Windows administrators.

Guest Customization Profiles in Prism Central 7.5 are not flashy. They are not meant to be. But if you run Windows workloads on Nutanix and keep fixing the same small issues after every clone, this feature quietly earns its place.