[Yandex Cloud documentation](../../index.md) > [Yandex Cloud Desktop](../index.md) > Concepts > Images

# Images

An _image_ is a complete copy of the file system structure and data on a disk. Cloud Desktop images always contain an OS.

An image is used to create a desktop [boot disk](disks.md#boot-disk). 

For more on images, see [this Compute Cloud guide](../../compute/concepts/image.md).

## System images {#system-images}

Cloud Desktop system images contain a basic OS version, such as Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

You cannot delete such images.

## Custom images {#custom-images}

In Cloud Desktop, you can add custom images created from:

* Cloud Desktop [desktop](../operations/images/create-from-desktop.md)
* [Linux VM](../operations/images/create-from-compute-linux.md) in Compute Cloud
* [Your own Windows image](../operations/images/create-from-windows.md)

This way, you can deploy and configure the required software environment on your desktop, VM, or in an image, and replicate it to users through Cloud Desktop images.

You can [delete](../operations/images/delete.md) custom images.