Unable to Create a stable Windows 11 VM

Apps and Virtualization
1

Hi All,

I am very new to Truenas core, but I have been working in IT for 25+ years. I am trying to setup a Windows 11 VM but so far have failed, must to my frustration.
I have created the VM and via the command line, set the correct machine type and enable the TPM 2.0 chip.

I then mount the Windows 11 ISO and do a normal Windows 11 pro setup. I am using Windows 11 with my Office 365 business account so set the business login option, which I eventually get prompted to setup a PIN. I do this and then reboot the VM and I get a bluescreen. No matter what I try, I end up with the same result. If I skip the pin setup. The VM works ok.

Does any one have any confirmed best practice steps to follow for setting up a Windows 11 VM?

I am running the following system:
OS Version:TrueNAS-SCALE-24.04.2.2

Product:HP Z440 Workstation

Model:Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1680 v3 @ 3.20GHz

Memory:31 GiB

Any help would be much appricated!

Adrian

2

There are drivers which need to be added to the install in order for win11 to work within KVM (Windows VirtIO drivers set), did you install them?

Also, in my case, I discovered that win11 VM should not be allowed to go to sleep because that will also crash the machine.

3

Ensure you are setting the CPU Model to at least host model, or pass through.

4

I just made one to run Hyper-V in it. Then I made a Hyper-V vm in it. All good. Slow but stable.
The steps are: CPU passthrough with NIC and HDD via VirtIO ( get the ISO from the net, I used virtio-win-0.1.262.iso )
Also, I made the memory fixed. Win11 likes 16 gig even if not in use. Win10 runs fine with 4 gig. All depending on what you’ll run in it of course.
Since I wanted it for Hyper-V I gave it 24 gig ( out of 64 in the box ).

Let us know how it went on your side :slight_smile:

5

I’m having problems upgrading my VM from W10Pro to W11Pro, with a Xeon D1518 board and the latest Electric Eel. I set the type to Q35 and added the TPM option, assigned 4 cores and 16gb. The install fails at the end with the message that the CPU doesn’t support SSE 4.2 or PopCnt. If I set the type to host or passthrough the VM fails to start at all, probably because the 1518 isn’t supported by W11 in the first place. Is there a custom device that would work?

Not trying to hijack the thread but this looks to be one of two on W11 problems.

6

Try a 23H2. The newest and greatest, 24H2, ain’t that great.

7

Ensure that you are setting the CPU type to Host Model or Passthrough in the VM config.

8

I got this to work specifying Custom and going back to Nehalem as the CPU type, which reports as Intel Core i7 9xx. Broadwell didn’t work. I might try something in between. Elsewhere it is Q35 and ICH9, 2009.

Host Model or Passthrough reports as Xeon D-1518 and causes the VM to not start on W11 24H2; W10 worked fine. This could be new with 24H2.

EDIT: Haswell seems to have worked too.

9

No. Host model or passthrough is the best performance.

Install from scratch with that setting.