Download the VirtIO-win drivers necessary for QEMU networking and storage performance.
During installation, you will need to load VirtIO drivers for the network and storage to work properly. Download the VirtIO-win ISO and attach it as a secondary CD-ROM. Optimizing Windows 11 for QEMU/KVM
If you prefer a graphical interface:
For a permanent, production-ready setup, the gold standard is creating your own QCOW2 file by installing Windows 11 from an official ISO. This ensures you have exactly the drivers and configuration you need. 1. Get Your Ingredients Official Windows 11 ISO: Download from the Microsoft Software Download page VirtIO Drivers: Essential for performance on KVM/Proxmox. Grab the virtio-win.iso official Fedora project repo 2. Create the Empty QCOW2 Container Before installing, you need a virtual "hard drive": Deploy Windows 11 Dev VM to Proxmox - sekureco42
GitHub is a good source for pre-configured KVM environments. For instance, projects like Win-KVM-Qemu-Linux often provide scripts for building fully automated images. windows 11 qcow2 download
Depending on your host system, you might need a specific architecture:
If you want to tailor this deployment to your specific infrastructure, let me know: Optimizing Windows 11 for QEMU/KVM If you prefer
One major advantage of QCOW2 is its native support for snapshots, which is highly useful for testing or "undoing" changes in lab environments.
Import your converted QCOW2 file into the Proxmox local storage using the CLI: qm importdisk windows11_vm.qcow2 Use code with caution. Get Your Ingredients Official Windows 11 ISO: Download
qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 Windows11_DevVM.vmdk windows11.qcow2 Use code with caution. -f : Specifies the source file format ( vhdx or vmdk ). -O : Specifies the target output format ( qcow2 ).
qemu-system-x86_64 \ -drive file=windows11.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio \ -enable-kvm -m 8192 -smp 4 \ -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd \ -cpu host -machine type=q35,accel=kvm \ -device intel-tpm -tpmdev passthrough,id=tpm0,path=/dev/tpm0 \ -netdev user,id=net0 -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 \ -vga qxl -display spice-app