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Alexander Foken
Asked: 2016-05-13 07:18:23 +0800 CST

Windows 7 Setup hangs at "Starting Windows" using Proxmox 4.2

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I am trying to install Windows 7 on Proxmox Virtual Environment version 4.2-4/2660193c, running on Debian Jessie. I have followed the instructions on this site.

I uploaded a known-good Win7 ISO (that works fine with VirtualBox and real hardware) to Proxmox, and configured VM following the recommended best practices.

When the VM is started, Windows shows the gray text mode progress bar saying "Windows is loading files ...", then switches to "Starting Windows" and stays there for hours.

There is no visible action, no colored Windows logo, no animation, no disk I/O, no CPU load, no log output. No way to continue.

XP Home installed without any problems in a VM.

Host is Intel Core i5, VT enabled, 32 GByte RAM, 8 TByte SATA disks.

How do I get Win7 to continue its setup process on Proxmox 4.2?

kvm-virtualization windows-7 proxmox

3 Answers

  1. It's a (known) bug.

    Workaround: Change the display from 'default' to 'cirrus'. You can find this setting under hardware > display.

    Or, if you are creating the VM on the command line using virt-install, just add --video cirrus. For example:

    sudo virt-install \ --virt-type=kvm \ --name windows7 \ --ram 2048 \ --vcpus=2 \ --os-variant=win7 \ --virt-type=kvm \ --hvm \ --cdrom=/var/lib/libvirt/boot/windows7.iso \ --network=bridge=virbr0,model=virtio \ --graphics vnc \ --disk path=/var/lib/libvirt/images/windows7.qcow2,size=256,sparse=yes,bus=virtio,format=qcow2 \ --video cirrus

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  2. The solution is to switch to "cirrus" on VGA options. That work for me.

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  3. On the final part (5/5) of the 'Create a new virtual machine' wizard, click the 'Customise configuration before install' checkbox and proceed, then you will get some more options. Choose the 'Video QXL' option and use the Model dropdown to select 'Cirrus' and that will do the trick.

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