Quick guide on preparing a wheezy image for Windows Azure

This is just a crude outline, from memory. The basic idea is to prepare your VM on a machine using hyper-v, add the windows azure linux agent, run the deprovision command, and upload.

1/ Prerequisites

Read http://wiki.debian.org/Cloud/WindowsAzureImage
Install the azure command-line tools on your machine
Install hyper-v

2/ Create a new virtual machine in hyper-v

Create the VM without a virtual hard disk, then add one at the VHD format (not VHDX). Choose wisely the VHD size ! You won't pay for uploading data to Azure, but uploading 30Gb is a pain if you have average connectivity. Besides, you'll be able to create data disks on azure and mount them directly.

3/ Install your stuff

Install whatever you want on that VM, and finish with the Azure tools:
sudo apt-get install waagent

4/ (Optional) Save your work

Stop the VM, backup its VHD, restart. If you have to tweak things the backup will save tons of time.

5/ Deprovision the VM

sudo waagent -deprovision+user

6/ Upload and test

You can shutdown your VM, the VHD is ready to be tested on Azure. To do that you'll need to create a storage account and upload the VHD (see the azure command-line tool to do that : azure vm image create --help)

A note about step 6: I did my uploads in a more complicated way last time I tested, if you encounter problems there let me know (@piercou).