Windows VM For Small Business?

[geekmaster64]

Throwing the option out there.

Hyper-V does work well and Hyper-V server is free.

 

[diskdiddler]

No the thing is, I'm trying to consolidate hardware - I'm slowly removing more and more from my house. If I could minimise my Windows VM to say 6GB memory, 4 cores (out of my 32GB memory, 8 cores) and run it under BHyve, it'll mean my server is pretty much my only physical device running stuff in the house.


I wouldn't mind setting up CUPS in a VM somehow with USB passthrough, instead of my OrangePiZero but that's really not necessary, yet.

 

[ChrisChros]

Mine isn't perfect but it's definitely usable - what about stability?

With stability I don't have any problems sinse I use the VirtIO NIC drivers.

 

[diskdiddler]

So rock solid, but slow - it's better than nothing. Ok thanks!

 

[Randall_64]

If you already have an install using AHCI, you'll need to get the VirtIO drivers installed and working in order to do the switch.
First, add a spare disk as VirtIO (Do NOT switch your OS drive yet at this point, it doesn't need to be formatted or anything, any ZVol will work). Once booted, mount the VirtIO driver ISO, go into Device Manager and find the Unknown Device, right-click and choose Update Driver.
In the New Hardware wizard, select "Browse my computer for driver software", and enter in the mounted drive's letter in for the search path (I.e. D:\). Click Next, and Windows should automatically find the RedHat VirtIO driver. It should prompt you to allow signed drivers (if you've never installed a VirtIO driver before).
At this point, if Windows has not crashed you should be able to shutdown the VM, go into Devices, and switch the OS drive to VirtIO (you can also remove the dummy disk, we're done with it now).
If all goes well, Windows will start up, say it's installing devices and reboot back, normal as can be (except perhaps a little faster now that it's using VirtIO).

Hi Tsaukpaetra,
Great post. Thank you for your notes. Those helped me with my Win2019 VM, all with VirtIo disks now.
Thanks!
Grts, R.