Windows guests - build ISOs including VirtIO drivers

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Using Paravirtualized Block Drivers for Windows can dramatically improve Windows guest performance but installing them can be a bit of a fuss. This Tutorial shows you how you can inject all VirtIO drivers into all of your Windows install ISOs in one step using Windows® Automated Installation Kit and some batch files. This makes it really easy to deploy Windows with the most efficient hardware/driver configuration.

Prep Machine


Prep and extract isos

  • copy all your Windows ISOs to folders c:\tmp\win7, c:\tmp\win2008, c:\tmp\win8, c:\tmp\win2012, etc
  • extract sources\boot.wim and sources\install.wim from each iso (e.g. by using UltraISO) and put them in the same folder as the iso
  • get the latest virtio-win-x.x-xx.iso and extract the drivers into the VirtIO folder for each OS (e.g. WIN8\AMD64\*.* from the iso goes into c:\tmp\win8\VirtIO\ and into c:\tmp\win2012\VirtIO\)


use AIK

  • Start All Programs -> Microsoft Windows AIK -> Deployment Tools Command Prompt (Run as Administrator)
  • check how many indices your install.wim has (e.g. dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:c:\tmp\win2008\install.wim). Windows 2008 has up to 8 indices
 dism /get-wiminfo /wimfile:c:\tmp\win2008\install.wim
 .
 .
 Index : 7
 Name : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERWEB
 Description : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERWEB
 Size : 10,538,107,020 bytes

 Index : 8
 Name : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERWEBCORE
 Description : Windows Server 2008 R2 SERVERWEBCORE
 Size : 3,580,635,107 bytes

 The operation completed successfully.
  • Set the variable IDX in each winxxxx-inject.bat to the number of indices you found in each install.wim (e.g. IDX=8)
  • For each OS there is a SetupComplete.cmd. This script is always executed by the Windows installation as a final step. Make sure it contains the ballon service installer. You may add other commands to it.

inject drivers and write wim files back to isos

  • launch multiple winxxxx-inject.bat sequentially and uninterrupted, e.g.: winpe-inject.bat && win7-inject.bat etc.
winpe-inject.bat && win7-inject.bat && win2008-inject.bat && win8-inject.bat && win2012-inject.bat
  • alternatively you can run multiple batch commands in parallel by launching multiple instances of "Deployment Tools Command Prompt" as Administrator
  • for each iso use UltraISO to copy boot.wim and install.wim back to the sources folder of the ISO file

example batch file win2012-inject.bat

@echo off

set MyOS=win2012
set IDX=4

if not exist c:\tmp\%MyOS%\virtio\blnsvr.exe (echo Please copy the VirtIO drivers to c:\tmp\%MyOS%\VirtIO\ first && goto :eof)

rem **********(1,1,2) means 2 loops *************************
FOR /L %%i IN (1,1,2) DO (
  ECHO Prepping %MyOS% boot.wim - Index %%i
  if not exist c:\tmp\%MyOS%\bootwim\%%i mkdir c:\tmp\%MyOS%\bootwim\%%i
  imagex /mountrw c:\tmp\%MyOS%\boot.wim %%i c:\tmp\%MyOS%\bootwim\%%i
  dism /image:c:\tmp\%MyOS%\bootwim\%%i /add-driver /driver:c:\tmp\%MyOS%\virtio /Recurse /ForceUnsigned
  imagex /unmount /commit c:\tmp\%MyOS%\bootwim\%%i
)


FOR /L %%i IN (1,1,%IDX%) DO (
  ECHO Prepping %MyOS% install.wim - Index %%i
  if not exist c:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i mkdir c:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i
  imagex /mountrw c:\tmp\%MyOS%\install.wim %%i c:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i
  dism /image:c:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i /add-driver /driver:c:\tmp\%MyOS%\virtio /Recurse /ForceUnsigned
  xcopy /Y c:\tmp\%MyOS%\VirtIO "C:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i\Program Files\VirtIO\"
  xcopy /Y c:\tmp\%MyOS%\SetupComplete.cmd "C:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i\Windows\Setup\Scripts\"
  imagex /unmount /commit c:\tmp\%MyOS%\installwim\%%i
)

:eof

Additional Info

change the Proxmox UI default settings to VirtIO

Now that you have changed all your ISO files to include Paravirtualized drivers you no longer need IDE drives or a E1000 network adapter. Wouldn't it be best to change the defaults to the settings that use our resources most efficiently. Please follow these instructions to patch the PVE UI. Defaults - change PVE UI defaults to VirtIO

VirtIO drivers

Use virtio dirvers for best performance. More info: Paravirtualized Block Drivers for Windows

See also

Windows 2012 guest best practices

Windows 2008 guest best practices

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