Chapter 3. Installing Windows Virtual Machines
This chapter describes the steps required to install a Windows virtual machine:
- Create a blank virtual machine on which to install an operating system.
- Add a virtual disk for storage.
- Add a network interface to connect the virtual machine to the network.
- Attach the virtio-win.vfd diskette to the virtual machine so that VirtIO-optimized device drivers can be installed during the operating system installation.
- Install an operating system on the virtual machine. See your operating system’s documentation for instructions.
- Install guest agents and drivers for additional virtual machine functionality.
When all of these steps are complete, the new virtual machine is functional and ready to perform tasks.
3.1. Creating a Virtual Machine
Create a new virtual machine and configure the required settings.
Procedure
You can change the default virtual machine name length with the
engine-config
tool. Run the following command on the Manager machine:# engine-config --set MaxVmNameLength=integer
-
Click
. - Click New Virtual Machine window. to open the
- Select an Operating System from the drop-down list.
- Enter a Name for the virtual machine.
Add storage to the virtual machine. Attach or Create a virtual disk under Instance Images.
- Click Attach and select an existing virtual disk.
- Click Create and enter a Size(GB) and Alias for a new virtual disk. You can accept the default settings for all other fields, or change them if required. See Section A.4, “Explanation of Settings in the New Virtual Disk and Edit Virtual Disk Windows” for more details on the fields for all disk types.
- Connect the virtual machine to the network. Add a network interface by selecting a vNIC profile from the nic1 drop-down list at the bottom of the General tab.
- Specify the virtual machine’s Memory Size on the System tab.
- Choose the First Device that the virtual machine will boot from on the Boot Options tab.
- You can accept the default settings for all other fields, or change them if required. For more details on all fields in the New Virtual Machine window, see Section A.1, “Explanation of Settings in the New Virtual Machine and Edit Virtual Machine Windows”.
- Click .
The new virtual machine is created and displays in the list of virtual machines with a status of Down
. Before you can use this virtual machine, you must install an operating system and VirtIO-optimized disk and network drivers.