Windows 8.1 in KVM

As Windows XP comes to its end of life, I have to get with the times and test my windows programs in Windows 8.1.

Naturally I am drawn to KVM which is where I run all my Windows instances.

Despite some initial concerns regarding the lack of the +sep flag (covered in my winpe pxe blog), installing Windows 8.1 turned out to be a breeze. I just used the settings for Windows 7 64bit.

After the install I was prompted to log. I have no interest in using a 'Microsoft Account' so I used the obscure procedure of 'Don't have an account' -> 'Sign in without a Microsoft account' which would be better described as 'Create local account'.

The next confronting issue was the start menu or whatever they call it these days. I worked out that I should not to look at it, just to start typing. That works more or less the same as the 'search' on Windows 7 (but possibly faster. It makes by mind boggle that it can take so long to run cmd.exe on Windows 7).

Once I had the basics under control, I set about installing the VirtIO & Spice drivers for extra performance and GUI features (like screen resizing). Alas, spice-guest-tools-0.74.exe does not support Windows 8 and fails during the install complaining about an unsupported version of Windows.

I know the virtio drivers work because I have used them in WinPE so I set about installing them manually. Although they are compatible, installing them is not straight forward.

The driver files are made available under Program Files (x86)\SPICE Guest Tools

The method I normally use is to use guestfish to install the driver file and configure it in the Critical Driver Data Base (CDDB) using a registry patch. Windows 8 no longer has a CDDB so this method does not work.

In the end I reverted to an old method:

• Add a new (temporary) VirtIO disk to the VM
• Boot into Windows
• Install the drivers for VirtIO
• Shut down windows
• Remove the temporary disk
• Change the main disk from IDE to VirtIO

This method works much like it has since Windows 7 allowed changing of the boot path.

The VirtIO network seems to work fine.

Talking to a Samba sever required adjusting some settings. First there are some updates which are apparently required (according to Microsoft) so I make sure all the OS patches were installed first.

Next I adjusted some policy settings under Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> Security Options:

• Network security: LAN Manager authentication level = Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated
• Network security: Minimum session security for NTLM SSP based (including secure RPC) clients = No Minimum

Then restart the workstation service or reboot.

Finally, the graphics drivers. For reasons which don't seem to be explained, the QXL video driver is not compatible with Windows 8.1. The performance of the 'Microsoft' driver is not too bad but it means no resizing which is annoying.

I am hoping that the spice people make their drivers and installer work soon.

One final observation is to do with the windows version number. Windows 8.1 is NT 6.3 but unless your program is manifested for windows 8.1, you will get the version number 6.2. This is by design. Some kind of new design which means the the GetVersion... API has been deprecated. What are they doing over at Microsoft???