[SOLVED] Running Windows 10 in both bare-metal and KVM/QEMU

[Anton Gubarkov]

I wanted to make use of my Windows 10 OEM installed on the HDD of my notebook. My main system is Gentoo (90% of time). I run several systems (both linux and Windows) as QEMU/KVM guests. Having to reboot into my Windows 10 every time I need an app from that system, had always been a nuisance and I wanted to make it possible to run this Windows install in either bare metal or as QEMU/LVM guest at my discretion. MS EULA allows that, however MS techs have put as many traps on this way as possible.
I assume that you've mastered dual-boot already and can boot to Gentoo and Windows alternately. If not, please tend to this problem first and then return here.


Usually there are 2 caveats that must be solved:

• Inaccessible boot device
  
• Activation
  

Let's start with Activation. I use rather latest versions of qemu and the kernel: 4.13.12-ck-zfs and QEMU emulator version 2.10.0. The domain xml exerpts that I'll post here may work differently on earlier versions of kernel/qemu.

To trick Windows activation into believing that you haven't changed your hardware a lot, we need to translate parts of the acpi information from the host to the guest.

So I started with a freshly created VM in libvirt/wirt-manager. I run UEFI firmware on the host, so make sure you create your machine in UEFI as well. It will be very difficult to change afterwards. Make arbitrary small disk with SATA bus. We'll discard this disk later anyway.

After that we need to collect a bit of the information about the host. Run:

[Anton Gubarkov]

Run Device Manager and switch to view by connections. Find storage controller that connects your drive where Windows 10 is installed. Inspect the drives and access the Volumes tab to find the correct drive and controller.

Once the controller is identified, you need to open its properties and look up the driver details. Mine is C:\WINDOWS\System32\DRIVERS\iaStorA.sys. Yours may be different, note it down. You can close the device manager now.

If your storage controller is storahci.sys you can skip the remaining section about storage controllers.

Open the registry editor and open the key [HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services] and locate the key [storahci\StartOverride]. There is a DWORD parameter of 0 in it with value 3 that means - override startup of this driver as non-essential for Windows 10 boot. Edit this value to 0 and save. You'll need to do it before every shut down because Windows 10 will reset it to 3 after every startup using another storage controller. Yes, it is annoying, I know. Thanks Microsoft for one more trap on our journey. I'll tackle automation in the next post.

This may be enough for your Windows 10 to start in the qemu guest.
Optional: disable fastboot and hibernation. Fastboot is a boot using hibernated state. If you try to resume from hibernation in the environment different from the one you hibernated in, the results are unpredictable.

I assume that your windows 10 is activated now. If not, tackle this problem before going on further.
Oh! one last warning - make sure your have a full backup of your data now and you have a recovery drive to re-install your Windows 10 if things go awfully wrong.

Reboot into Gentoo and prepare to launch your new shiny guest VM with Windows 10.

[Anton Gubarkov]

Now start your new guest in libvirt virt-manager and enjoy your success! Verify, that your Windows 10 is still activated. Mine was. You yours does not, don't blame me. You have ben warned!
If you hit inaccessible boot device, you'll need to get back to Windows 10 bare metal and perform safeboot next time:

Open admin command prompt and type:

[Crocodillian]

So I followed this guide, initially I got the disk device wrong because I misread and used the partition device instead of the disk device, but then I switched to the disk device and everything works fine.

I also installed this to unmount the ESP when the VM is booting:

https://gitlab.com/ranolfi/rvirtesp

I did not have a mobo UUID on this supermicro mobo, at least dmidecode reports it as "not settable".

I did not have a SLIC either, since this is a workstation/server board and not e.g. a laptop.

So activation did not work at first, probably because of this, I did copy the hard drive serial btw.

I saw this SU thread:

https://superuser.com/questions/1057959/windows-10-in-kvm-change-boot-disk-to-virtio

which says virtio is faster for raw disks, so I switched it to that.

It also says that if activation fails, and then you boot the real hardware followed by the VM in sequence it will be activated properly, I did this and it worked!

I installed your powershell script as described, don't know if I need it or not.. My real hardware controller is stornvme.

Thanks for the guide, it was very helpful!

[ml35]

[ml35]

[Marlo]

Anton Gubarkov!

Thank you very much for this really valuable explanation.
It was not easy for me, but I can start Win10 and have sound.

Only the video resolution remains at 800x600. Whether QXL, VGA or VIRTIO I can not change the resolution.

Is there a hint that could help?
Thanks again
Ma

Solved
I have created a new drive with libvirt and connected to this iso.
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

The virtio-win.iso contains drivers, including the QXL driver for the monitor / video. The resolution now goes up to 4096x2160.
I think that's enough.
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[Moso]

Hi Anton!

Can you please take a look at "Raw vmdk booting of Windows 10 with winload.exe error 0xc000000e - used to work... " post and give me some advice?

I tried to understand and adapt your solution but had no success.

I think the problem is almost the same you solved.

[pmatti]

The critical parts for me were:
- Set the vm uuid
- Set the disk serial number
- Use a whole disk, not a partition
- Disable fastboot.

That was enough to get my bare-metal windows machine on an sdd into a qemu-virtualized one, and to have it authenticate

Thanks so much.