Proxmox documentation is exceptional but we have created a quick guide for setting up a Windows host as it’s not the same defaults to be used when setting up Linux. The guide on Proxmox’s Wiki for Windows 2019 and Windows 10 seems exactly the same. We’ve included both links in the references.
This article highlights the non defaults.
TL;DR
- Download special disk, network, and ballooning drivers here: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso
- In addition to mounting the Windows ISO, also mount that fresh ISO as IDE device #3 (some strange default occurs 3). Be sure to mount the ISO when creating the VM otherwise you’ll have to reboot before the OS will recognize it.
- Ensure you select QEMU Agent on the second tab of the wizard.
- So here are interesting disk settings:
- Set “Write back” as cache option for best performance
- Tick “Discard” to optimally use disk space (TRIM)
- Driver location on CD:
- Hard disk: vioscsi\2k19\amd64
- Network: NetKVM\2k19\amd64
- Memory Balloon: Balloon\2k19\amd64
- Choose SCSI bus as you normally would for the disk
- Choose this network device: VirtIO (paravirtualized)
Proxmox Wizard Steps
If you are import an existing QCOW2, then you probably only need the Proxmox wizard stuff to fill in:
- General Tab
- Name
- OS Tab
- Do not use any media
- Guest OS: Microsoft Windows version 10/2016/2019
- System Tab
- Tick Qemu Agent
- Hard Disk Tab
- Bus/Device: SCSI. That will default next line to VirtIO SCSI
- Storage: raid1 or whatever volume you decide on
- Cache: Write back
- Discard: Tick this
- CPU
- Memory
- Network
- VirtIO (paravirtualized)