Windows 10.qcow2 | 2027 |

What are you using? (e.g., Virt-Manager, Proxmox VE, raw QEMU command line)

qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b Windows10-base.qcow2 VM1.qcow2 qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b Windows10-base.qcow2 VM2.qcow2 Windows 10.qcow2

Before building the image, you need the official Windows 10 installation media and the Windows paravirtualized drivers (VirtIO). Without VirtIO drivers, Linux-based hypervisors cannot communicate efficiently with the virtual hardware, resulting in poor disk and network performance. What are you using

: You can compress the image to save additional disk space. Common Management Tasks 1. Shrinking (Sparsifying) the File : You can compress the image to save additional disk space

✅ – Without it, Windows 10 will be extremely slow. ✅ Use virtio drivers – For better disk/network performance. Attach virtio-win.iso during install. ✅ Snapshot before major updates – qemu-img snapshot -c pre-update Windows10.qcow2 ❌ Don’t use raw disk access unless you know the risks. ❌ Don’t share the same .qcow2 between running VMs – use a backing file or copy.

qemu-img convert -O qcow2 -c windows_10.qcow2 windows_10_shrunk.qcow2 Use code with caution.