Installing Windows 10 in Qemu with KVM

These are the steps I arrived at in order to install a Windows 10 Guest on an Ubuntu 18.04 host using virt-manager to install a Qemu VM with KVM acceleration and VirtIO drivers.

Prerequisites

Create a directory to work in and install the tools we will need. The virtio-win ISO image contains the drivers we will need in order to make Windows bootable.

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mkdir windows
cd windows/
sudo apt-get install virt-manager
wget https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/virtio-win-0.1.160-1/virtio-win-0.1.160.iso

You will also need to copy your Windows 10 installer ISO into your windows/ directory.

Disk Setup

This creates a blank image that will be attached as a virtual hard drive to the Windows instance. We use qcow2 because it supports some nice extensions above those on the raw format, like thin provisioning of storage.

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qemu-img create -f qcow2 windows_10_x64.qcow2 75G

Creating the VM

Call virt-install to create the VM.

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virt-install \
    --name=windows10 \
    --ram=2048 \
    --cpu=host \
    --vcpus=2 \
    --os-type=windows \
    --os-variant=win10 \
    --disk path=windows_10_x64.qcow2,format=qcow2,bus=virtio \
    --disk en_windows_10_enterprise_x64_dvd_6851151.iso,device=cdrom,bus=ide \
    --disk virtio-win-0.1.160.iso,device=cdrom,bus=ide \
    --network network=default,model=virtio \
    --graphics vnc,password=trustworthypass,listen=0.0.0.0

Verify the running VMs with the virsh command:

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~/windows $ virsh list
 Id    Name                           State
----------------------------------------------------
 4     windows10                      running

Connecting to the VM

Now that the VM is running, you need to connect to it and install Windows. VNC to the host machine on port 5900 using the password you specified in the virt-install command. You did change that password, didn’t you?

On Mac OS you can use open to call the built in VNC client.

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open vnc://<host>:5900

Windows Install

There will be a few extra steps to install Windows above and beyond a normal install. Because the accelerated VirtIO drivers required to interface with the virtual disk controller are not bundled with Windows, we need to load them into the installer before it will be able to talk to the virtual hard drive.

When asked to do an Upgrade or a Custom install, select Custom Install.
Windows Setup screen showing Custom Install option selectedWindows Setup screen showing Custom Install option selected

Select Load Driver to point the installer to your driver file.
Windows Setup disk selection screen with no drives found, highlighting the Load Driver buttonWindows Setup disk selection screen with no drives found, highlighting the Load Driver button

Navigate to E:\viostor\w10\amd64
Browse for Folder dialog showing viostor driver folder structure with w10/amd64 directory selectedBrowse for Folder dialog showing viostor driver folder structure with w10/amd64 directory selected

There should only be one option, the VirtIO SCSI Controller.
Driver selection screen showing Red Hat VirtIO SCSI controller driverDriver selection screen showing Red Hat VirtIO SCSI controller driver

The installer should now see your virtual disk. Hit next to let Windows automatically partition it.
Windows disk selection screen now showing Drive 0 Unallocated Space with 75.0 GB availableWindows disk selection screen now showing Drive 0 Unallocated Space with 75.0 GB available

Next steps

Once the installer finishes and you get into Windows you may want to do a few more things

  • Install the other drivers on the virtio-win ISO (network, etc…)
  • Apply Updates
  • Enable RDP