Interestingly, you can use the Microsoft Enterprise Application Extension Handler in both your own VM roles that you create as well as for VMs running in Azure.

If you’re using Windows Azure Pack on premises, you might have encountered the VM Role Authoring Tool, which you can use to create customized types of IaaS VMs through VMM 2012 R2 for your internal clients. Note that it’s not possible (yet) to customize BGinfo as you can when you use it on your own VMs. This can be very useful, when you’re remoting into multiple VMs in Azure, to keep track of which machine you’re on and what its settings are. The most basic use of extensions is enabling BGinfo which displays information about the computer on the desktop’s background. If you’ve messed up RDP access to the VM, you can also fix that through this extension. Now there’s a VM access extension that lets you reset the password of a Windows VM using PowerShell and reset the SSH key or password for a Linux VM. If you manage to lock yourself out of a Linux or Windows Azure VM by forgetting your username and/or password, your options prior to installation of the VM agent were limited. Azure VM extensionsĪfter you install the VM agent, you can enable one or more extensions to unlock additional functionality in your VMs. Removing the agent from a VM with extensions enabled might cause instability and is not supported.

Make sure you create the VM without the agent.

Note that regulations or other corporate rules might prevent you from running the agent in a VM.

Microsoft antimalware for azure