How to install Windows 10 in QEMU
This guide details how to install Windows 10 in QEMU. Windows 10 is an operating system created by Microsoft, released in 2015. It is the second latest Windows version, behind Windows 11.
Prerequisites
QEMU
You will need QEMU installed.
Windows 10 ISO
You'll need a Windows 10 ISO for this guide. You can:
- You can use a physical disc
- Download the Windows 10 ISO from Computernewb:
- Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC, which is slimmed down compared to the stock ISO (recommended).
- Stock Windows 10
- Source an ISO from elsewhere
Installation
Creating the Disk Image
First, open a command window and create a disk image for the VM using a command like the following.
qemu-img create -f qcow2 win10.qcow2 40G
40G can be replaced with however big you want the hard drive to be (with G standing for Gigabytes).
Starting QEMU
You can now start up QEMU with a command like the following:
qemu-system-x86_64 -M q35,usb=on,acpi=on,hpet=off -m 6G -cpu host,hv_relaxed,hv_frequencies,hv_vpindex,hv_ipi,hv_tlbflush,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff,hv_synic,hv_runtime,hv_time,hv_stimer,hv_vapic -smp cores=4 -accel kvm -drive file=win10.qcow2 -device usb-tablet -device VGA,vgamem_mb=256 -nic user,model=e1000 -monitor stdio -cdrom en-us_windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_257ad90f.iso
Installing Windows
From here, the installation is pretty straightforward. Agree to the license, select a custom install to the unallocated space, and wait for it to install. The OS should install pretty quick on newer systems.
Post-install
Invoking QEMU
After installing, you should remove the same QEMU command as before, except the -cdrom ... argument should be removed.
Activation
Windows 10 can be activated using Massgrave's Microsoft Activation Scripts:
- Download the latest MAS_AIO.cmd and run it
- Select 3 for TSForge Activation, followed by 1 to activate Windows.
- You should now have an activated copy of Windows 10.