Install Win10 Virtual Machine

There are many tutorials for installing virtual machines on PVE, and it’s not difficult. Here, I will specifically mention another way of installing Windows on PVE: installing directly on a physical hard drive.

This is similar to installing Windows normally; you can take the SSD with Windows 10 already installed and use it directly. The process is very simple—just apply a Windows virtual machine template and adjust the parameters. The specific steps are as follows:

First, you have a physical disk with Windows installed, and it’s connected to PVE.

Create a virtual machine and make some basic settings, relatively casual, this is just a simple template:  

   – Name it simply as win10  

   – No media required, choose the category as Windows and Win10  

   – Configure machine type, BIOS, SCSI controller, etc.  

   – On the disk page, delete ide0  

   – Configure CPU; here, I gave it 4 cores, and selected host for better performance  

   – Configure memory; give it 4GB of RAM initially, no ballooning  

Next is the key step; the previous settings can be adjusted later.  

– Add the M.2 drive with Windows already installed  

– Then, in the options, go to boot order and set the PCI device (the M.2 drive where Windows is installed) as the first, drag it to the top, and uncheck all others  

– Start the virtual machine, and it will be done  

After booting into the system, you may find there is no network. You can configure PCI passthrough for the network card, use E1000, or upload a virtIO CD to install the drivers or manually install them. I won’t elaborate here.  

Other Issues

For traditional Win10 VM installation:  

1. Use OVMF  

2. Set machine type to q35  

3. Check TPM and v2.0  

4. Enable NUMA  

5. Never check “Pre-installed key”  

6. During the virtual machine boot, press Esc to enter the BIOS management interface, select the device with the installation image in the Boot Manager, and boot from it; otherwise, you won’t reach the installation screen  

7. When starting the installation, you need to mount two DVD ISOs, one for Win10 and one for virtio  

8. Remember, the two CDs must be separated—one on ide0 and the other on ide2  

9. Install all necessary drivers: In Device Manager, PCI devices will show a warning symbol and need updating. Right-click and select “Update”, then choose the directory from the virtIO driver CD you mounted earlier, and let it scan and install the drivers.

Install Other Virtual Machines

Unable to enter installation issue: 

Solution:  

When entering, immediately press Esc to enter the BIOS, then disable secure boot.  

Specifically, there is a secure-related option in the first BIOS tab; enter it, turn off secure boot, then save and continue.  

Precautions

The TrueNAS system only occupies a little over 4GB. Although 8GB is enough, you should give at least 16GB, because during future TrueNAS upgrades, it will notify you that the boot space is insufficient.