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Windows VirtIO Drivers

VirtIO Drivers are paravirtualized drivers for kvm/Linux (see http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Virtio). In short, they enable direct (paravirtualized) access to devices and peripherals for virtual machines using them, instead of slower, emulated, ones.

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164 views2 pages

Windows VirtIO Drivers

VirtIO Drivers are paravirtualized drivers for kvm/Linux (see http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Virtio). In short, they enable direct (paravirtualized) access to devices and peripherals for virtual machines using them, instead of slower, emulated, ones.

Uploaded by

ndarndar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Windows VirtIO Drivers

Contents
Introduction
Windows OS support
Driver ISOs
See also

Introduction
VirtIO Drivers are paravirtualized drivers for kvm/Linux (see http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Virtio). In short,
they enable direct (paravirtualized) access to devices and peripherals for virtual machines using them, instead of
slower, emulated, ones.
A quite extended explanation about VirtIO drivers can be found here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library
/l-virtio.

At the moment these kind of devices are supported:

block (disks drives), see Paravirtualized Block Drivers for Windows


network (ethernet cards), see Paravirtualized Network Drivers for Windows
balloon (dynamic memory management), see Dynamic Memory Management
You can maximize performances by using VirtIO drivers. The availability and status of the VirtIO drivers depends
on the guest OS and platform.

Windows OS support
Windows does not have VirtIO drivers included. The Fedora project provides CD ISO images with compiled and
signed VirtIO drivers for Windows.

See

https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/creating-windows-virtual-machines-using-virtio-drivers
/index.html
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers
http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/WindowsGuestDrivers/Download_Drivers
The source code of those drivers can be found on Github. See https://github.com/virtio-win/kvm-guest-drivers-
windows

Driver ISOs
Each of the ISOs is labelled with a numeric release.

Older versions could still be useful when, as it happens, a Windows VM shows instability or incompatibility with
the latest drivers.
a web repository https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/archive-virtio/
here you can find both stable (https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virti
o/virtio-win.iso) and latest (https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-virtio/vi
rtio-win.iso) sets of drivers

in source format (.zip)


in compiled format (.iso)
The binary drivers are digitally signed by Red Hat (but NOT WHQL), and will work on 64-bit
versions of Windows

In the iso there are several dirs, with subdir for each supported OS version (2k19, 2k16, 2k12, 2k12R2, 2k3, 2k8,
2k8R2, w7, w8, w8.1, w10):

Balloon
guest-agent
NetKVM
pvpanic
qemupciserial
qxl
qxldod
viorng
vioscsi
vioserial
viostor

See also
Windows_VirtIO_Drivers/Changelog
Paravirtualized Block Drivers for Windows
Paravirtualized Network Drivers for Windows
Dynamic Memory Management

Retrieved from "https://pve.proxmox.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Windows_VirtIO_Drivers&oldid=10534"

This page was last edited on 5 November 2019, at 15:07.

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