virtio-win

virtio-win at a glance

virtio-win bundles the paravirtualised Windows drivers for KVM/QEMU — networking (NetKVM), storage (viostor, vioscsi), memory ballooning and serial channels — together with the QEMU guest agent and the SPICE agent, shipped as an installer and as an ISO image. Administrators need the drivers during Windows setup on Proxmox VE, oVirt, OpenStack or plain KVM, because virtual disks and network adapters are otherwise not detected; in day-to-day operation they also provide guest information, clean shutdowns and consistent snapshots.

The project maintains two lines: a stable set aligned with the corresponding enterprise Linux release, and rolling builds with an incrementing number that can be of pre-release quality. Publication is irregular, usually as a complete ISO plus an RPM package.

When updating, install signed drivers only, refresh the guest agent together with the drivers, and reboot after a change. Storage drivers deserve the most care, because a system disk that is no longer recognised leaves the VM unbootable — take a snapshot or backup first. Keep the ISO stored on the hypervisor current for newly created VMs as well.