Chapter 18. Installing and managing Windows virtual machines
To use Microsoft Windows as the guest operating system in your virtual machines (VMs) on a RHEL 8 host, Red Hat recommends taking extra steps to ensure these VMs run correctly.
For this purpose, the following sections provide information about installing and optimizing Windows VMs on the host, as well as installing and configuring drivers in these VMs.
18.1. Installing Windows virtual machines
You can create a fully-virtualized Windows machine on a RHEL 8 host, launch the graphical Windows installer inside the virtual machine (VM), and optimize the installed Windows guest operating system (OS).
To create the VM and to install the Windows guest OS, use the virt-install
command or the RHEL 8 web console.
Prerequisites
A Windows OS installation source, which can be one of the following, and be available locally or on a network:
- An ISO image of an installation medium
- A disk image of an existing VM installation
A storage medium with the KVM
virtio
drivers.To create this medium, see Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine.
-
If you are installing Windows 11, the
edk2-ovmf
,swtpm
andlibtpms
packages must be installed on the host.
Procedure
Create the VM. For instructions, see Creating virtual machines, but keep in mind the following specifics.
If using the
virt-install
utility to create the VM, add the following options to the command:The storage medium with the KVM
virtio
drivers. For example:--disk path=/usr/share/virtio-win/virtio-win.iso,device=cdrom
The Windows version you will install. For example, for Windows 10 and 11:
--os-variant win10
For a list of available Windows versions and the appropriate option, use the following command:
# osinfo-query os
If you are installing Windows 11, enable Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) and virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM):
--boot uefi --tpm model=tpm-crb,backend.type=emulator,backend.version=2.0
If using the web console to create the VM, specify your version of Windows in the Operating system field of the Create new virtual machine window.
- If you are installing Windows versions prior to Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022, start the installation by clicking .
If you are installing Windows 11, or you want to use additional Windows Server 2022 features, confirm by clicking
and enable UEFI and vTPM using the CLI:Open the VM’s XML configuration:
# virsh edit windows-vm
Add the
firmware='efi'
option to theos
element:<os firmware='efi'> <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-q35-6.2'>hvm</type> <boot dev='hd'/> </os>
Add the
tpm
device inside thedevices
element:<devices> <tpm model='tpm-crb'> <backend type='emulator' version='2.0'/> </tpm> </devices>
- Start the Windows installation by clicking Virtual machines table. in the
Install the Windows OS in the VM.
For information about how to install a Windows operating system, refer to the relevant Microsoft installation documentation.
- If using the web console to create the VM, attach the storage medium with virtio drivers to the VM by using the Disks interface. For instructions, see Attaching existing disks to virtual machines by using the web console.
-
Configure KVM
virtio
drivers in the Windows guest OS. For details, see Installing KVM paravirtualized drivers for Windows virtual machines.
18.2. Optimizing Windows virtual machines
When using Microsoft Windows as a guest operating system in a virtual machine (VM) hosted in RHEL 8, the performance of the guest may be negatively impacted.
Therefore, Red Hat recommends optimizing your Windows VMs by doing any combination of the following:
- Using paravirtualized drivers. For more information, see Installing KVM paravirtualized drivers for Windows virtual machines.
- Enabling Hyper-V enlightenments. For more information, see Enabling Hyper-V enlightenments.
- Configuring NetKVM driver parameters. For more information, see Configuring NetKVM driver parameters.
- Optimizing or disabling Windows background processes. For more information, see Optimizing background processes on Windows virtual machines.
18.2.1. Installing KVM paravirtualized drivers for Windows virtual machines
The primary method of improving the performance of your Windows virtual machines (VMs) is to install KVM paravirtualized (virtio
) drivers for Windows on the guest operating system.
The virtio-win
drivers are certified (WHQL) against the latest releases of Windows 10 and 11, available at the time of the respective virtio-win
release. However, virtio-win
drivers are generally tested and expected to function correctly on previous builds of Windows 10 and 11 as well.
To install the drivers on a Windows VM, perform the following actions:
- Prepare the install media on the host machine. For more information, see Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine.
- Attach the install media to an existing Windows VM, or attach it when creating a new Windows VM. For more information, see Installing Windows virtual machines on RHEL.
-
Install the
virtio
drivers on the Windows guest operating system. For more information, see Installing virtio drivers on a Windows guest. -
Install the
QEMU Guest Agent
on the Windows guest operating system. For more information, see Installing QEMU Guest Agent on a Windows guest.
18.2.1.1. How Windows virtio drivers work
Paravirtualized drivers enhance the performance of virtual machines (VMs) by decreasing I/O latency and increasing throughput to almost bare-metal levels. Red Hat recommends that you use paravirtualized drivers for VMs that run I/O-heavy tasks and applications.
virtio
drivers are KVM’s paravirtualized device drivers, available for Windows VMs running on KVM hosts. These drivers are provided by the virtio-win
package, which includes drivers for:
- Block (storage) devices
- Network interface controllers
- Video controllers
- Memory ballooning device
- Paravirtual serial port device
- Entropy source device
- Paravirtual panic device
- Input devices, such as mice, keyboards, or tablets
- A small set of emulated devices
For additional information about emulated, virtio
, and assigned devices, refer to Managing virtual devices.
By using KVM virtio drivers, the following Microsoft Windows versions are expected to run similarly to physical systems:
- Windows Server versions: See Certified guest operating systems for Red Hat Enterprise Linux with KVM in the Red Hat Knowledgebase.
Windows Desktop (non-server) versions:
- Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit versions)
18.2.1.2. Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine
To install or update KVM virtio
drivers on a Windows virtual machine (VM), you must first prepare the virtio
driver installation media on the host machine. To do so, attach the .iso
file, provided by the virtio-win
package, as a storage device to the Windows VM.
Prerequisites
- Ensure that virtualization is enabled in your RHEL 8 host system. For more information, see Enabling virtualization.
- Ensure that you have root access privileges to the VM.
Procedure
Refresh your subscription data:
# subscription-manager refresh All local data refreshed
Get the latest version of the
virtio-win
package.If
virtio-win
is not installed:# yum install -y virtio-win
If
virtio-win
is installed:# yum upgrade -y virtio-win
If the installation succeeds, the
virtio-win
driver files are available in the/usr/share/virtio-win/
directory. These includeISO
files and adrivers
directory with the driver files in directories, one for each architecture and supported Windows version.# ls /usr/share/virtio-win/ drivers/ guest-agent/ virtio-win-1.9.9.iso virtio-win.iso
Attach the
virtio-win.iso
file as a storage device to the Windows VM.-
When creating a new Windows VM, attach the file by using the
virt-install
command options. When installing the drivers on an existing Windows VM, attach the file as a CD-ROM by using the
virt-xml
utility:# virt-xml WindowsVM --add-device --disk virtio-win.iso,device=cdrom Domain 'WindowsVM' defined successfully.
-
When creating a new Windows VM, attach the file by using the
Additional resources
18.2.1.3. Installing virtio drivers on a Windows guest
To install KVM virtio
drivers on a Windows guest operating system, you must add a storage device that contains the drivers (either when creating the virtual machine (VM) or afterwards) and install the drivers in the Windows guest operating system.
This procedure provides instructions to install the drivers by using the graphical interface. You can also use the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) command line interface.
Prerequisites
-
An installation medium with the KVM
virtio
drivers must be attached to the VM. For instructions on preparing the medium, see Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine.
Procedure
-
In the Windows guest operating system, open the
File Explorer
application. -
Click
This PC
. -
In the
Devices and drives
pane, open thevirtio-win
medium. Based on the operating system installed on the VM, run one of the installers:
-
If using a 32-bit operating system, run the
virtio-win-gt-x86.msi
installer. -
If using a 64-bit operating system, run the
virtio-win-gt-x64.msi
installer.
-
If using a 32-bit operating system, run the
In the
Virtio-win-driver-installer
setup wizard that opens, follow the displayed instructions until you reach theCustom Setup
step.- In the Custom Setup window, select the device drivers you want to install. The recommended driver set is selected automatically, and the descriptions of the drivers are displayed on the right of the list.
- Click , then click .
- After the installation completes, click .
- Reboot the VM to complete the driver installation.
Verification
On your Windows VM, navigate to the Device Manager:
- Click Start
- Search for Device Manager
Ensure that the devices are using the correct drivers:
- Click a device to open the Driver Properties window.
- Navigate to the Driver tab.
- Click Driver Details.
Next steps
- If you installed the NetKVM driver, you might also need to configure the Windows guest’s networking parameters. For more information, see Configuring NetKVM driver parameters.
18.2.1.4. Updating virtio drivers on a Windows guest
To update KVM virtio
drivers on a Windows guest operating system (OS), you can use the Windows Update
service, if the Windows OS version supports it. If it does not, reinstall the drivers from virtio
driver installation media attached to the Windows virtual machine (VM).
Prerequisites
- A Windows guest OS with virtio drivers installed.
-
If not using
Windows Update
, an installation medium with up-to-date KVMvirtio
drivers must be attached to the Windows VM. For instructions on preparing the medium, see Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine.
Procedure 1: Updating the drivers by using Windows Update
On Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and later operating systems, check if the driver updates are available by using the Windows Update
graphical interface:
- Start the Windows VM and log in to its guest OS.
Navigate to the Optional updates page:
Settings
Windows Update Advanced options Optional updates - Install all updates from Red Hat, Inc.
Procedure 2: Updating the drivers by reinstalling them
On operating systems prior to Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, or if the OS does not have access to Windows Update
, reinstall the drivers. This restores the Windows guest OS network configuration to default (DHCP). If you want to preserve a customized network configuration, you also need to create a backup and restore it by using the netsh
utility:
- Start the Windows VM and log in to its guest OS.
Open the Windows Command Prompt:
- Use the Super+R keyboard shortcut.
-
In the window that appears, type
cmd
and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to run as administrator.
Back up the OS network configuration by using the Windows Command Prompt:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\netsh dump > backup.txt
Reinstall KVM
virtio
drivers from the attached installation media. Do one of the following:Reinstall the drivers by using the Windows Command Prompt, where X is the installation media drive letter. The following commands install all
virtio
drivers.If using a 64-bit vCPU:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /i X:\virtio-win-gt-x64.msi /passive /norestart
If using a 32-bit vCPU:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /i X:\virtio-win-gt-x86.msi /passive /norestart
- Reinstall the drivers using the graphical interface without rebooting the VM.
Restore the OS network configuration using the Windows Command Prompt:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\netsh -f backup.txt
- Reboot the VM to complete the driver installation.
Additional resources
18.2.1.5. Enabling QEMU Guest Agent on Windows guests
To allow a RHEL host to perform a certain subset of operations on a Windows virtual machine (VM), you must enable the QEMU Guest Agent (GA). To do so, add a storage device that contains the QEMU Guest Agent installer to an existing VM or when creating a new VM, and install the drivers on the Windows guest operating system.
To install the Guest Agent (GA) by using the graphical interface, see the procedure below. To install the GA in a command-line interface, use the Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI).
Prerequisites
- An installation medium with the Guest Agent is attached to the VM. For instructions on preparing the medium, see Preparing virtio driver installation media on a host machine.
Procedure
-
In the Windows guest operating system, open the
File Explorer
application. -
Click
This PC
. -
In the
Devices and drives
pane, open thevirtio-win
medium. -
Open the
guest-agent
folder. Based on the operating system installed on the VM, run one of the following installers:
-
If using a 32-bit operating system, run the
qemu-ga-i386.msi
installer. -
If using a 64-bit operating system, run the
qemu-ga-x86_64.msi
installer.
-
If using a 32-bit operating system, run the
-
Optional: If you want to use the para-virtualized serial driver (
virtio-serial
) as the communication interface between the host and the Windows guest, verify that thevirtio-serial
driver is installed on the Windows guest. For more information about installingvirtio
drivers, see: Installing virtio drivers on a Windows guest.
Verification
On your Windows VM, navigate to the Services window.
Computer Management > Services
-
Ensure that the status of the
QEMU Guest Agent
service isRunning
.
Additional resources
18.2.2. Enabling Hyper-V enlightenments
Hyper-V enlightenments provide a method for KVM to emulate the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor. This improves the performance of Windows virtual machines.
The following sections provide information about the supported Hyper-V enlightenments and how to enable them.
18.2.2.1. Enabling Hyper-V enlightenments on a Windows virtual machine
Hyper-V enlightenments provide better performance in a Windows virtual machine (VM) running in a RHEL 8 host. For instructions on how to enable them, see the following.
Procedure
Use the
virsh edit
command to open the XML configuration of the VM. For example:# virsh edit windows-vm
Add the following
<hyperv>
sub-section to the<features>
section of the XML:<features> [...] <hyperv> <relaxed state='on'/> <vapic state='on'/> <spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/> <vpindex state='on'/> <runtime state='on' /> <synic state='on'/> <stimer state='on'> <direct state='on'/> </stimer> <frequencies state='on'/> </hyperv> [...] </features>
If the XML already contains a
<hyperv>
sub-section, modify it as shown above.Change the
clock
section of the configuration as follows:<clock offset='localtime'> ... <timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/> </clock>
- Save and exit the XML configuration.
- If the VM is running, restart it.
Verification
Use the
virsh dumpxml
command to display the XML configuration of the running VM. If it includes the following segments, the Hyper-V enlightenments are enabled on the VM.<hyperv> <relaxed state='on'/> <vapic state='on'/> <spinlocks state='on' retries='8191'/> <vpindex state='on'/> <runtime state='on' /> <synic state='on'/> <stimer state='on'> <direct state='on'/> </stimer> <frequencies state='on'/> </hyperv> <clock offset='localtime'> ... <timer name='hypervclock' present='yes'/> </clock>
18.2.2.2. Configurable Hyper-V enlightenments
You can configure certain Hyper-V features to optimize Windows VMs. The following table provides information about these configurable Hyper-V features and their values.
Enlightenment | Description | Values |
---|---|---|
evmcs | Implements paravirtualized protocol between L0 (KVM) and L1 (Hyper-V) hypervisors, which enables faster L2 exits to the hypervisor. Note This feature is exclusive to Intel processors. | on, off |
frequencies | Enables Hyper-V frequency Machine Specific Registers (MSRs). | on, off |
ipi | Enables paravirtualized inter processor interrupts (IPI) support. | on, off |
reenlightenment | Notifies when there is a time stamp counter (TSC) frequency change which only occurs during migration. It also allows the guest to keep using the old frequency until it is ready to switch to the new one. | on, off |
relaxed | Disables a Windows sanity check that commonly results in a BSOD when the VM is running on a heavily loaded host. This is similar to the Linux kernel option no_timer_check, which is automatically enabled when Linux is running on KVM. | on, off |
runtime | Sets processor time spent on running the guest code, and on behalf of the guest code. | on, off |
spinlocks |
| on, off |
stimer | Enables synthetic timers for virtual processors. Note that certain Windows versions revert to using HPET (or even RTC when HPET is unavailable) when this enlightenment is not provided, which can lead to significant CPU consumption, even when the virtual CPU is idle. | on, off |
stimer-direct | Enables synthetic timers when an expiration event is delivered via a normal interrupt. | on, off. |
synic | Together with stimer, activates the synthetic timer. Windows 8 uses this feature in periodic mode. | on, off |
time | Enables the following Hyper-V-specific clock sources available to the VM,
| on, off |
tlbflush | Flushes the TLB of the virtual processors. | on, off |
vapic | Enables virtual APIC, which provides accelerated MSR access to the high-usage, memory-mapped Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC) registers. | on, off |
vpindex | Enables virtual processor index. | on, off |
18.2.3. Configuring NetKVM driver parameters
After the NetKVM driver is installed, you can configure it to better suit your environment. The parameters listed in the following procedure can be configured by using the Windows Device Manager (devmgmt.msc
).
Modifying the driver’s parameters causes Windows to reload that driver. This interrupts existing network activity.
Prerequisites
The NetKVM driver is installed on the virtual machine.
For more information, see Installing KVM paravirtualized drivers for Windows virtual machines.
Procedure
Open Windows Device Manager.
For information about opening Device Manager, refer to the Windows documentation.
Locate the Red Hat VirtIO Ethernet Adapter.
- In the Device Manager window, click next to Network adapters.
Under the list of network adapters, double-click Red Hat VirtIO Ethernet Adapter.
The Properties window for the device opens.
View the device parameters.
In the Properties window, click the Advanced tab.
Modify the device parameters.
Click the parameter you want to modify.
Options for that parameter are displayed.
Modify the options as needed.
For information about the NetKVM parameter options, refer to NetKVM driver parameters.
- Click to save the changes.
18.2.4. NetKVM driver parameters
The following table provides information about the configurable NetKVM driver logging parameters.
Parameter | Description 2 |
---|---|
Logging.Enable | A Boolean value that determines whether logging is enabled. The default value is Enabled. |
Logging.Level | An integer that defines the logging level. As the integer increases, so does the verbosity of the log.
Note High logging levels will slow down your virtual machine. |
The following table provides information about the configurable NetKVM driver initial parameters.
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
Assign MAC | A string that defines the locally-administered MAC address for the paravirtualized NIC. This is not set by default. |
Init.Do802.1PQ | A Boolean value that enables Priority/VLAN tag population and removal support. The default value is Enabled. |
Init.MaxTxBuffers | An integer that represents the number of TX ring descriptors that will be allocated. The value is limited by the size of Tx queue of QEMU. The default value is 1024. Valid values are: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024. |
Init.MaxRxBuffers | An integer that represents the number of RX ring descriptors that will be allocated. The value is limited by the size of Tx queue of QEMU. The default value is 1024. Valid values are: 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, and 4096. |
Offload.Tx.Checksum | Specifies the TX checksum offloading capability. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the valid values for this parameter are:
|
Offload.Rx.Checksum | Specifies the RX checksum offloading capability. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the valid values for this parameter are:
|
Offload.Tx.LSO | Specifies the TX large segments offloading (LSO) capability. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the valid values for this parameter are:
|
MinRxBufferPercent | Specifies minimal amount of available buffers in RX queue in percent of total amount of RX buffers. If the actual number of available buffers is lower than that value, the NetKVM driver indicates low resources condition to the operating system (requesting it to return the RX buffers as soon as possible)
Minimum value (default) -
Maximum value - |
Additional resources
18.2.5. Optimizing background processes on Windows virtual machines
To optimize the performance of a virtual machine (VM) running a Windows OS, you can configure or disable a variety of Windows processes.
Certain processes might not work as expected if you change their configuration.
Procedure
You can optimize your Windows VMs by performing any combination of the following:
- Remove unused devices, such as USBs or CD-ROMs, and disable the ports.
- Disable background services, such as SuperFetch and Windows Search. For more information about stopping services, see Disabling system services or Stop-Service.
Disable
useplatformclock
. To do so, run the following command,# bcdedit /set useplatformclock No
- Review and disable unnecessary scheduled tasks, such as scheduled disk defragmentation. For more information about how to do so, see Disable Scheduled Tasks.
- Make sure the disks are not encrypted.
- Reduce periodic activity of server applications. You can do so by editing the respective timers. For more information, see Multimedia Timers.
- Close the Server Manager application on the VM.
- Disable the antivirus software. Note that disabling the antivirus might compromise the security of the VM.
- Disable the screen saver.
- Keep the Windows OS on the sign-in screen when not in use.
18.3. Enabling standard hardware security on Windows virtual machines
To secure Windows virtual machines (VMs), you can enable basic level security by using the standard hardware capabilities of the Windows device.
Prerequisites
- Make sure you have installed the latest WHQL certified VirtIO drivers.
- Make sure the VM’s firmware supports UEFI boot.
Install the
edk2-OVMF
package on your host machine.# {PackageManagerCommand} install edk2-ovmf
Install the
vTPM
packages on your host machine.# {PackageManagerCommand} install swtpm libtpms
- Make sure the VM is using the Q35 machine architecture.
- Make sure you have the Windows installation media.
Procedure
Enable TPM 2.0 by adding the following parameters to the
<devices>
section in the VM’s XML configuration.<devices> [...] <tpm model='tpm-crb'> <backend type='emulator' version='2.0'/> </tpm> [...] </devices>
- Install Windows in UEFI mode. For more information about how to do so, see Creating a SecureBoot virtual machine.
- Install the VirtIO drivers on the Windows VM. For more information about how to do so, see Installing virtio drivers on a Windows guest.
- In UEFI, enable Secure Boot. For more information about how to do so, see Secure Boot.
Verification
Ensure that the Device Security page on your Windows machine displays the following message:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security
Your device meets the requirements for standard hardware security.
18.4. Enabling enhanced hardware security on Windows virtual machines
To further secure Windows virtual machines (VMs), you can enable virtualization-based protection of code integrity, also known as Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI).
Prerequisites
- Ensure that standard hardware security is enabled. For more information, see Enabling standard hardware security on Windows virtual machines.
- Ensure you have enabled Hyper-V enlightenments. For more information, see Enabling Hyper-V enlightenments.
Procedure
Open the XML configuration of the Windows VM. The following example opens the configuration of the Example-L1 VM:
# virsh edit Example-L1
Under the
<cpu>
section, specify the CPU mode and add the policy flag.Important-
For Intel CPUs, enable the
vmx
policy flag. -
For AMD CPUs, enable the
svm
policy flag. -
If you do not wish to specify a custom CPU, you can set the
<cpu mode>
ashost-passthrough
.
<cpu mode='custom' match='exact' check='partial'> <model fallback='allow'>Skylake-Client-IBRS</model> <topology sockets='1' dies='1' cores='4' threads='1'/> <feature policy='require' name='vmx'/> </cpu>
-
For Intel CPUs, enable the
- Save the XML configuration and reboot the VM.
On the VMs operating system, navigate to the Core isolation details page:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security > Core isolation details
- Toggle the switch to enable Memory Integrity.
- Reboot the VM.
For other methods of enabling HVCI, see the relevant Microsoft documentation.
Verification
Ensure that the Device Security page on your Windows VM displays the following message:
Settings > Update & Security > Windows Security > Device Security
Your device meets the requirements for enhanced hardware security.
Alternatively, check System Information about the Windows VM:
-
Run
msinfo32.exe
in a command prompt. - Check if Credential Guard, Hypervisor enforced Code Integrity is listed under Virtualization-based security Services Running.
-
Run
18.5. Next steps
- To share files between your RHEL 8 host and its Windows VMs, you can use NFS.