Windows 7 QEMU Guest

Check your kernel was compiled with support.

zgrep CONFIG_KVM /proc/config.gz
zgrep VIRTIO /proc/config.gz

Check the kvm and virtio kernel modules are loaded.

lsmod | grep kvm
lsmod | grep virtio

I needed to manually load the virtio module:

sudo modprobe virtio

To automatically load the virtio module at boot:

echo "virtio" >> /etc/modules-load.d/virtio.conf

Reboot and check again:

lsmod | egrep 'virtio|kvm'

Install qemu. I also installed qemu-launcher – a GUI front-end.

sudo pacman -S qemu qemu-launcher

Create a working directory:

mkdir vms
cd vms

Create a virtual hard drive the the Windows installation.

qemu-img create -f qcow2 windows.qcow2 40G

Prepare the installation medium. I inserted a Windows 7 installation DVD and created an ISO locally.

sudo dd if=/dev/sr0 of=en-windows-7-professional-x64-dvd.iso

To launch into the Windows installation:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 4096 -cdrom en-windows-7-professional-x64-dvd.iso -boot d windows.qcow2

Once installed you don’t need to attach the ISO:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 4096 -boot d windows.qcow2

Update and upgrade to Windows 10 😉

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