While there are several virtual disk formats, QCOW2 offers specific advantages for managing older operating systems:
: Launch QEMU with your Windows 8 ISO and the new QCOW2 file.
Over time, as Windows installs updates, deleted data leaves behind ghost blocks that inflate the QCOW2 file size. You can shrink and compress the image to save space on your host machine.
to create or optimize a Windows 8 image for a KVM environment? windows 8 qcow2
qemu-system-x86_64 \ -enable-kvm \ -cpu host \ -smp 4 \ -m 4096 \ -drive file=win8.qcow2,format=qcow2,if=virtio \ -drive file=Win8_ISO.iso,media=cdrom \ -drive file=virtio-win.iso,media=cdrom \ -netdev user,id=net0 \ -device virtio-net-pci,netdev=net0 \ -vga qxl \ -display spice-app
Upload the .qcow2 file to /var/lib/vz/images and import it using the qm importdisk command.
While raw images have a tiny performance edge, the rich feature set of qcow2 makes it the recommended choice for nearly all use cases. While there are several virtual disk formats, QCOW2
: Use qemu-img to create a virtual hard drive. qemu-img create -f qcow2 windows8.qcow2 40G Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard
Most users prefer a GUI. In tools like virt-manager (the standard Linux KVM manager), you select "Create a new virtual machine," choose your Windows 8 ISO, and on the storage step, select "Select or create custom storage" and ensure the format is set to QCOW2.
1. Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE to create or optimize a Windows 8 image
It's strongly recommended to allocate at least 40 GB to ensure you have enough space for the OS and any applications you wish to install.
Some websites offer ready-to-run QCOW2 images. :