Yann's blog
Windows XP acceleration & KVM
It seems I am not the first one to have troubles setting up a windows XP KVM guest. The main problem seems to be that it just won't install using acceleration; on the other hand, it works fine without (qemu mode). Here is a command line that works to boot from an ISO file to install windows XP:
sudo virt-install --connect qemu:///system -n xpsp2 -r 512 -f windows.qcow2 -s 12 -c windowsxpsp2.iso --vnc --noautoconsole --os-type windows --os-variant winxp
Then install windows using your favourite VNC client:
virt-viewer -c qemu+ssh://ip/system xpsp2
Once the setup is finished, the VM will be defined as non accelerated; it will be using qemu instead of KVM, and will run much slower. Edit the file /etc/libvirt/qemu/xpsp2.xml , and set <emulator> to /usr/bin/kvm instead of /usr/bin/qemu.
Now you just need to redefine the VM and to start it:
sudo virsh
define xpsp2.xml
start xpsp2
Your windows VM is now accelerated :)
Posted at 10:02AM Jul 01, 2008 by Yann Hamon in General | Comments[0]