1. Install Plesk Create a clean installation of Plesk. For instructions, see Installing Plesk for Windows Using Installer Console. 2. Configure Plesk Configure Plesk exactly the way you wish the cloned instances to appear. It may include the following: - User interface layout through custom views - configured at post-install configuration, see Plesk Single Server Post-install Configuration. - Interface preferences and localization, see Appearance and Branding. - Control panel appearance and interface elements, see Customizing Plesk Appearance and GUI Elements. - Hosting plans and subscriptions, see Hosting Plans and Subscriptions. - DNS template, see DNS Template. 3. Prepare for Cloning Use the `%plesk_cli%\cloning.exe`` ``--update`` ``-prepare-public-image`` ``true` command to prepare a Plesk instance for cloning. You may also choose to configure certain additional options: - Preserve the initial configuration By default, the `cloning.exe` command will reset the configuration parameters of the instance: each cloned instance will have to be configured anew. Use `-reset-init-conf`` ``false` to preserve the initial configuration during cloning. - Reset the license Optionally, you may choose to remove the product license during cloning, so it is not copied throughout the cloned instances. Use `-reset-license`` ``true` to accomplish that. - Disable updates after cloning After the cloned instance is started, the availability of updates for the current version is checked explicitly and the updates are installed if necessary. Installation of updates is working under the same rules as in daily maintenance task. Updates installation can be disabled if option `-skip-update`` ``true` is passed while cloning. When IP pool reconfiguration is enabled, each time the server with Plesk is restarted, it will rediscover the IP addresses and reconfigure its IP pool accordingly. Use this when the virtual servers are allocated IP addresses dynamically. You may skip this step if the virtual servers you want to copy Plesk onto use static IP addresses. Also, omitting this option will make Plesk start faster because Plesk will not have to reconfigure its IP pool on each startup. 
%plesk_cli%\ipmanage.exe --auto-remap-ip-addresses true
For detailed information on the `cloning` utility, see cloning.exe: Server Cloning Settings. 4. Create a Snapshot If your software for managing virtual machines supports creating copies of virtual machines, which is normally true, stop (shut down) the virtual machine and create the image copy. Otherwise, if images copying is unavailable, you should use a special shutdown call that resets some instance data and then copy the machine by available means. The shutdown is performed by the following command from the command prompt (`cmd.exe`): 
sysprep /oobe /generalize /shutdown
Note When preparing a Plesk instance for cloning, avoid restarting the `psa` service and shutting down the virtual machine on which the instance is installed.
# Example: Preparing a Plesk for Windows instance for cloning The following command prepares Plesk for cloning by resetting sensitive data and product license while preserving the results of the post-install configuration, and disabling automatic updates. 
%plesk_cli%\cloning.exe --update ^
    -prepare-public-image true ^
    -reset-init-conf false ^
    -reset-license true ^
    -skip-update true
(The caret `^` character splits a single long command into multiple lines to make it more readable.)