Windows 7 Qcow2 Info

Bridging Legacy and Modern Virtualization: Windows 7 and the QCOW2 Format Introduction

Creating a Windows 7 QCOW2 image

  1. Prepare an installation ISO and a host with qemu-img/qemu-system or libvirt tools.
  2. Create the image: 
    qemu-img create -f qcow2 win7.qcow2 40G
    (40G is a reasonable default; adjust as needed.)
  3. Start the VM and install from ISO: 
    qemu-system-x86_64 -m 4096 -cdrom Win7.iso -boot d -drive file=win7.qcow2,format=qcow2 -enable-kvm -smp 2

    What is Qcow2?

    qemu-img convert -c -O qcow2 windows7.qcow2 windows7_compressed.qcow2 Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard 4. Usage and Integration OpenStack: Upload the image using the Glance service. Windows 7 Qcow2

    Limitations of Windows 7 Qcow2

    # On the physical Windows 7 machine, boot a Linux live USB.
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/stdout bs=1M status=progress | ssh user@host "qemu-img convert -f raw -O qcow2 - windows7.qcow2"