Right-click the device, select , and point the search to your VirtIO CD-ROM drive.
To create a blank QCOW2 disk to install Windows 8 onto, you would use the qemu-img command:
Unlike a standard raw disk image, which is a bit-for-bit copy of a hard drive (consuming massive space regardless of actual data), QCOW2 is "sparse." A 100GB QCOW2 file containing a fresh install of Windows 8 might only take up 10GB on your physical drive.
Once the VM boots, proceed as follows:
You can use this as documentation, a guide summary, or a note for virtualization setups.
qemu-system-x86_64 -hda windows8.qcow2 -cdrom /path/to/windows8.iso -m 2048 -vga virtio
The QCOW2 format allows for "snapshots"—digital bookmarks in time. Before installing a risky driver or a questionable piece of 2010s freeware, the user saves the state. If the OS crashes into a "Blue Screen of Death," they simply roll back the image to the exact second before the disaster. The Legacy In the end, the Windows 8 QCOW2 windows 8 qcow2
Execute the following command to boot the virtual machine, attaching the Windows 8 ISO, the VirtIO driver disk, and your newly created QCOW2 file:
Proceed with the normal Windows installation. When Windows asks "Where do you want to install Windows?", it will not see any drives. This is because you need to load the virtio storage driver.
Video drivers that allow fluid display resizing and multi-monitor output. Right-click the device, select , and point the
Once booted into the Windows 8 desktop, open File Explorer, navigate to the VirtIO CD-ROM, and run the standard installer ( virtio-win-gt-x64.msi ). This installs: High-performance paravirtualized network drivers.
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