Windows 2003 guest best practices

Introduction

This is a set of best practices to follow when installing a Windows 2003 guest on a Proxmox VE server. Right now it's a work in progress, written by a Proxmox noob but hopefully soon it will be a comprehensive and reliable document.

Power settings

In order for the Windows 2003 guest to shutdown cleanly in the event of a shutdown on the Proxmox VE host you need to enable "Allow system to be shut down without having to log on". It can be found in the policy editor here: "Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Shutdown: Allow system to be shut down without having to log on", by running: gpedit.msc.

Disk

Use virtio / raw for best performance.

Network

Use e1000 NIC.

Sources and further reading

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