Proxmox Virtio Drivers Windows

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  • 2Install
  • 3Install Guest Agent and Services
  • 4Further Information

Parent Directory - archive-qemu-ga/ 2020-11-24 02:44 - archive-virtio/ 2020-11-24 02:44 - latest-qemu-ga/ 2020-11-24 02:37 - latest-virtio/ 2020-11-24 02:37 - stable-virtio/ 2020-07-21 03:54 - upstream-virtio/ 2019-05-29 23:10 - virtio-win-pkg-scripts-input/ 2020-11-24 02:44.

Introduction

This is a set of best practices to follow when installing a Windows Server 2012(R2) guest on a Proxmox VE server 6.x.

Install

I downloaded the iso from your last link and installed it successfully, using the Windows 10 drivers. (VirtIO Scsi, VirtIO nic). Windows 2019 seems quite identical to Win 10. So no problems for Proxmox VE. Installing Virtio Drivers In Windows On KVM 3rd July 2018. Virtio drivers are paravirtualized device drivers for KVM virtual machines. Paravirtualized drivers enhance the performance of machines, decreasing I/O latency and increasing throughput to near bare-metal levels. KVM/QEMU Windows guest drivers (virtio-win) This repository contains KVM/QEMU Windows guest drivers, for both paravirtual and emulated hardware. The code builds and ships as part of the virtio-win RPM on Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and the binaries are also available in the form of distribution-neutral ISO and VFD images. The main rpool on proxmox is on a ZFS Mirror pair of 128GB SSDs (pve doesn't use mdraid), and they're both healthy and working fine. In windows I've got the VirtIO block driver loaded fine, latest version, no major error except.it has a Write Speed less than 1 MB/s. The Read speed is over 300MB/s. The system is unusably slow in this state.

Prepare

To obtain a good level of performance, we will install the Windows VirtIO Drivers during the Windows installation.

  • Create a new VM, select 'Microsoft Windows 8.x/2012/2012r2' as Guest OS and enable the 'Qemu Agent' in the System tab. Continue and mount your Windows Server 2012 ISO in the CDROM drive
  • For your virtual hard disk select 'SCSI' as bus with 'VirtIO SCSI' as controller. Set 'Write back' as cache option for best performance (the 'No cache' default is safer, but slower) and tick 'Discard' to optimally use disk space (TRIM).
  • Configure your memory settings as needed, continue and set 'VirtIO (paravirtualized)' as network device, finish your VM creation.
  • For the VirtIO drivers, upload the driver ISO (use the stable VirtIO ISO, get it from here) to your storage, create a new CDROM drive (use 'Add -> CD/DVD drive' in the hardware tab) with Bus 'IDE' and number 3. Load the Virtio Drivers ISO in the new virtual CDROM drive.
  • Now your ready to start the VM, just follow the Windows installer.

Launch Windows install

  • After starting your VM launch the noVNC console
  • Follow the installer steps until you reach the installation type selection where you need to select 'Custom (advanced)'
  • Now click 'Load driver' to install the VirtIO drivers for hard disk and the network.
    • Hard disk: Browse to the CD drive where you mounted the VirtIO driver and select folder 'vioscsi2k12amd64' and confirm. Select the 'Red Hat VirtIO SCSI pass-through controller' and click next to install it. Now you should see your drive.
    • Network: Repeat the steps from above (click again 'Load driver', etc.) and select the folder 'NetKVM2k12amd64', confirm it and select 'Redhat VirtIO Ethernet Adapter' and click next.
    • Memory Ballooning: Again, repeat the steps but this time select the 'Balloon2k12amd64' folder, then the 'VirtIO Balloon Driver' and install it by clicking next. With these three drivers you should be good covered to run a fast virtualized Windows 10 system.
  • Choose the drive and continue the Windows installer steps.

HINT: There is a video showing the process for a Windows Server 2016 installation which is the same as for Windows Server 2012.

Install Guest Agent and Services

Guest Agent

Windows

If you enabled the Qemu Agent option for the VM the mouse pointer will probably be off after the first boot.

To remedy this install the 'Qemu Guest Agent'. The installer is located on the driver CD under guest-agentqemu-ga-x86_64.msi.

Drivers and Services

VirtIO guest tools installer

The easiest way to install missing drivers and services is to use the provided MSI installer. It is available on the driver CD since version 'virtio-win-0.1.173-2'.

Run the 'virtio-win-gt-x64.msi' file located directly on the CD. If you do not plan to use SPICE you can deselect the 'Qxl' and 'Spice' features. Restart the VM after the installer is done.

After all this the RAM usage and IP configuration should be shown correctly in the summary page of the VM.

For more information and configuration about ballooning, see Dynamic Memory Management

Check for missing drivers

See also: Paravirtualized Block Drivers for Windows
Unknown device in device manager
Make sure to include subfolders

Go to the Device Manager to see if there are any drivers missing.For any unknown device:

  • Right click an select 'Update driver'.
  • Select 'Browse my computer for driver software'.
  • Select the Driver CD. Make sure that 'Include subfolders' is checked.
  • Once a driver has been found you might be prompted with a security warning asking if you 'Would like to install this device software'. Click 'Install'.

Further Information

RAW vs QCOW2

The RAW file format provides slightly better performance WHILE qcow2 offers advanced features such as copy on write and Live_Snapshots independent of the backing storage.Since Proxmox VE version 2.3, qcow2 is the default format.

VirtIO Drivers

Make it really easy:Build your ISO with drivers already included:Windows guests - build ISOs including VirtIO drivers

Latest ISO file with VirtIO drivers:https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio/

See also

Retrieved from 'https://pve.proxmox.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Windows_2012_guest_best_practices&oldid=10551'

How can you change the hard disk interface from IDE or SATA to SCSI or VirtIO without breaking Windows startup?

Part of my job of migrating from VirtualBox to Proxmox involved moving two Windows virtual machines: one running Windows 7, and one running Windows 10.

I imported the Windows disks using the same process outlined in this article, but soon discovered that unlike the Linux VMs, which booted right up on VirtIO drives with no configuration needed, Windows did not support VirtIO natively. I got the Windows 10 machine running by connecting the drive with SATA; once this was working, I installed the necessary drivers and switched the virtual drive interface to VirtIO.

The Windows 7 VM didn’t even like SATA.

I had to disconnect the hard disk and add it again, selecting IDE as the interface type; this allowed Windows 7 to boot successfully.

Once you have Windows booting and running successfully, you can install VirtIO or SCSI drivers and switch your hard disk interface over. But how can you install drivers for hardware that’s not connected to Windows?

It turns out that the process is fairly simple. We’ll add an additional hard drive to the Windows VM, setting its interface type to VirtIO. Storage location and format are not critical; we’ll remove this disk later when we’re done with it. Just store it anywhere, and click Add.

Next, boot up the Windows VM and take a peek in Device Manager; you should see hardware with drivers not installed, marked by yellow warning triangles. The first one turns out to be the Balloon driver (more on that in a minute); the second one is obviously our hard disk controller. Adding a hard drive to the machine using a different interface made Windows see new hardware, which allows us to install appropriate drivers.

So we’re going to have to install drivers for those devices. I’ll add my “ISOs” folder to the Windows machine as a CD drive (click here for more information on how to prepare this folder, where to download its contents, and so on).

To add this CD drive, (1) in the virtual machine’s Hardware tab select the CD/DVD drive; (2) click Edit in the toolbar; and (3) select the appropriate folder and ISO image; and click OK.

When you click OK, it’s just as if you had placed a CD into the drive of a physical machine and closed the drawer. Windows recognizes the drive, asks what you want to do with it, etc. Take note of the drive letter assigned (likely D:).

Once the drive letter has been duly noted (in my case the CD drive is D: ), you can close the AutoPlay prompt. Back in the Device Manager, double-click on one of the devices that needs drivers. (Or, right-click on it and click Properties.) I’ll pick the “PCI Device” first. Select the Driver tab, and click Update Driver; and then click “Browse my computer for driver software.”

Proxmox Virtio Drivers Windows 2008 R2

In the Search Location box in the next part of the wizard, simply enter the CD drive letter followed by a colon; make sure “Include subfolders” is checked; and click Next. What this will do is allow Windows to search all the subfolders of the CD drive and pick the appropriate driver automatically.

After a short pause, you should see something like this. Click Install to allow driver installation to proceed.

In the screenshot above, Windows is installing the VirtIO Balloon Driver. This is a driver that allows Windows to report the correct amount of RAM being used to Proxmox; without it, the percentage of VM RAM being used as shown in the Proxmox dashboard’s machine summary can be very inaccurate.

When the driver install is complete, close the window telling you the driver has been installed successfully, and close the “PCI Device Properties” window. We’ll repeat the last few steps for the SCSI Controller, installing its driver in exactly the same manner.

Proxmox Install Virtio Drivers Windows 10

When done, no devices in Device Manager should be marked with the yellow triangle any longer. Here you can see the Balloon Driver and the VirtIO SCSI driver, installed and working properly (both marked with red ink below).

Shut down the virtual machine. When it’s powered down, head over to the Proxmox web interface and remove the temporary hard disk we created earlier. Two remove steps are needed; the first detaches it, making it an “unused disk”; the second step removes the drive from Proxmox altogether.

With that done, detach the IDE boot disk. Select it and click Remove, changing it to Unused Disk also. Then double-click the unused disk and add it to the VM again, this time selecting VirtIO as the interface.

Now set the VirtIO disk as the first boot option.

Proxmox Virtio Drivers Windows 10

Start the VM and watch it boot using the NoVNC Console; ensure it boots successfully.

Proxmox Windows 2003 Virtio Drivers

That’s it. Enjoy the increased performance of VirtIO, and I wish you success with Windows activation on the new host!