Is it possible to run Windows with Steam in a VM on FreeNAS?

[FatalKeystroke]

I'm planning my first real FreeNAS build. I've done tests with spare hardware to ensure it does network sharing how I want. However I haven't found any information on this and as yet, this is the only thing I would like to do that I don't know how. Ideally, and I understand this may be a total impossibility and a long shot, but I figured it's worth asking, I would like to emulate Windows running Steam and allow me to use in-home streaming to make me not have to have any Windows boxes anymore (Steam is the only thing I use Win for).

 

[Jailer]

If you're talking about gaming I doubt you'll have good luck with this. Besides Windows stability is iffy in vbox on freenas. Others have had success but the only windows install I've been able to get installed and running stable is XP x64.

 

[adrianwi]

I've got a Win 7 VM running which is very stable, but it's only used for running a Glashfish server and syncing Office 365 storage with ownCloud.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I would like to emulate Windows running Steam and allow me to use in-home streaming to make me not have to have any Windows boxes anymore (Steam is the only thing I use Win for).

I would expect that you can get it up and running pretty easily, but there's a good chance you'll run into niggling stability issues, depending on, well, just about every other aspect of your build and how you use it.

I had stability issues with Ubuntu Server VMs, which went away and haven't returned. Circumstantial evidence suggests the solution was replacing a drive that occasionally timed out, but I have no proof. I also run my VMs with the host I/O cache enabled on the SATA emulation, which others claim to be the panacea for Windows 7 VM stability, but it's not clear to me that it's helping my Ubuntu VMs. @cyberjock explained in another thread that even when the performance of your storage satisfies you as far as how it affects your VMs, the VirtualBox hypervisor may be more fussy and will abort VMs if it detects I/O issues.