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How to run Windows 11 on ARM in QEMU 6.1 on Apple Silicon Mac

How to run Windows 11 on ARM in QEMU 6.1 on Apple Silicon Mac

  1. Follow the excellent gist here, up to and including step 7 : https://gist.github.com/niw/e4313b9c14e968764a52375da41b4278

  2. I converted my VHDX to qcow2 - I doubt if that's significant, but YMMV:

./qemu-img convert -p -O qcow2 ~/Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us__22454-orig.VHDX Windows11.img
  1. Run qemu with a slightly modified command-line. It may not be the most efficient, but it worked for me:
./qemu-system-aarch64 \
  -monitor stdio \
  -M virt,highmem=off \
  -accel hvf \
  -cpu host \
  -smp 8 \
  -m 8192 \
  -drive file=pflash0.img,format=raw,if=pflash,readonly=on  \
  -drive file=pflash1.img,format=raw,if=pflash \
  -device ramfb \
  -device qemu-xhci \
  -device usb-kbd  \
  -device usb-tablet \
  -device intel-hda \
  -device hda-duplex  \
  -nic user,model=virtio  \
  -drive file=Windows11.img,format=qcow2,if=none,id=boot \
  -device nvme,drive=boot,serial=boot \
  -boot c \
  -drive file=spice-guest-tools-0.164.iso,media=cdrom,if=none,id=drivers \
  -device usb-storage,drive=drivers
  1. Boot Windows and run the spice tool setup to install drivers to enable NICs, etc.
@bzuruce
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bzuruce commented Jan 12, 2023

Just stuck at guest did not initialize screen yet.
Code:


qemu-system-aarch64 \
  -monitor stdio \
  -M virt \
  -accel hvf \
  -cpu host \
  -smp 8 \
  -m 8192 \
  -drive file=pflash0.img,format=raw,if=pflash,readonly=on  \
  -drive file=pflash1.img,format=raw,if=pflash \
  -device ramfb \
  -device qemu-xhci \
  -device usb-kbd  \
  -device usb-tablet \
  -device intel-hda \
  -device hda-duplex  \
  -nic user,model=virtio  \
  -drive file=Windows11.img,format=qcow2,if=none,id=boot \
  -device nvme,drive=boot,serial=boot \
  -boot c \
  -drive file=spice-guest-tools-0.164.iso,media=cdrom,if=none,id=drivers \
  -device usb-storage,drive=drivers

highmem caused another error

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