Using standard IDE or SATA emulation can be slow. For "Metro-speed" performance, use .
qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o preallocation=off win81.qcow2 60G
At least 20 GB of physical disk space allocated to the QCOW2 image. Step 1: Create the QCOW2 Virtual Disk
Method B: Graphical Interface (Virtual Machine Manager / virt-manager ) Open and choose Create a New Virtual Machine . windows 81 qcow2 install
If you are looking to set this up on a specific Linux distribution (like Ubuntu or Fedora), I can provide the exact command-line installation steps.
You can create a virtual machine (VM) and install Windows 8.1 on it using the following command. Before running the command, replace /path/to/win8.1.iso with the actual path to your Windows 8.1 ISO file.
The true power of QCOW2 is snapshots. Before a risky install, create a snapshot. Using standard IDE or SATA emulation can be slow
Once Windows 8.1 boots to the desktop, you must install the remaining drivers for network and graphics optimization. Install Network and System Drivers Right-click the Start button and select .
Click , choose Storage , set the device type to CDROM , and select your downloaded virtio-win.iso file. Click Apply and start the installation. 4. The Windows 8.1 Installation Phase
This method uses the command line for maximum control and is common on standard Linux distributions. Step 1: Create the QCOW2 Virtual Disk Method
sudo virt-sysprep -a downloaded-windows81.qcow2 # Remove machine-specific IDs mv downloaded-windows81.qcow2 clean-windows81.qcow2 virt-install --import --name win81 --disk clean-windows81.qcow2 --ram 4096 --vcpus 2 --os-variant win8.1
qemu-img create -f qcow2 win81.qcow2 60G