Install Windows 10

These are guidelines to install Windows 10 inside a Ravada KVM Guest.

Requirements

Installation sources

The Windows 10 ISO image file is required:

Download it and copy them in the Ravada host server at the directory /var/lib/libvirt/images .

Virtual Machine features

The guest should have more than 3 GB of RAM You can increase it later if you want to keep it slim.

At least 30GB disk drive is required. A swap partition should also be added when creating the virtual machine.

Create the Virtual Machine

From the web management tools, go to “New Machine” and create select the Windows 10 Template and the ISO image you just downloaded.

It may take a few minutes if it is the first Windows virtual machine that is installed in this system. Ravada will download the additional drivers ISO volume.

../_images/create_win10.png

When the machine is created start it from Admin Tools menu, click on Virtual Machines to see a list. At the right there is a bunch of buttons. Click on view to start and access the virtual machine console.

../_images/create_win10_view.png

Start and View Virtual Machine

Setup

The installer may not see the virtual machine disk drive. Choosing “Load Drivers” in this screen and select

VirtIO Windows Drivers

Click on “Examine”, you should see two CD units. The drivers are in the second one called something like “virtio-win”. Choose amd64 and then select the operative system you are installing.

For Windows 11 it should the driver as Red Hat VirtIO SCSI controller (E:amd64w11viostor.inf)

Click on Next to continue installing Windows.

Follow the usual procedure to install Windows10.

Use a swap partition for pagefiles

By default the Windows pagefiles will go to the C: disk drive. That will make the clones partitions grow up too much and fill your host disk drive. It should go to the SWAP volume, problaby in your D: or E: drive.

In this link you can see how to move pagefiles to another disk:

https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-move-page-file-in-windows-10-to-another-disk/