Music composed by LHSChiptunes, here is the link to the playlist used for background: [ Ссылка ]

Install Windows in a Linux VPS

This technique can also save you a lot, since very often vps with Windows cost a lot compared to linux because you must also pay the license.

For drivers ... It depends on the type of virtualization used and it takes different types of drivers, the most used virtualization is kvm and a lot of vps kvm use Virtio to emulate the components, the VirtIO drivers are not included in the Windows driver package, even those needed for operation, including the storage controller, so when trying to install windows it will ask for drivers. To fix you need to download the drivers suitable for your vps (in my case, VirtIO) and include them in the windows installation and in particular in the boot.wim file with DISM (A detailed guide is written on how to use this tool below). However you can see the "brand" of the emulated components of the vps using the command "lspci" on linux, in my case in many components appears the word Virtio. Once you find the "brand" of your components you are looking for a bit online, the most important is the storage controller, in many cases there are packs of drivers that you select with DISM and immediately install them all. However, before looking for drivers I suggest you make a first attempt with a windows installation without drivers added and if windows installer asks the drivers then reinstall linux in the vps and install drivers, of course if you make the lspci appears Virtio do not try as already we know that external drivers are necessary.

Since a lot of vps use Virtio I leave the link to download the latest driver pack: [ Ссылка ]

As you can see is an iso, it must be unpacked and then you have to take for each component the folder with the version of windows that you are installing and going under the folder with your written architecture (now all the vps are amd64), finally grouped all the compatible drivers for you in a single folder that you will select with DISM.

DISM in detail:

First you need to transfer the boot.wim file to the sources folder of the iso of the installation in a windows computer, there are several ways, I for example I uploaded to a file hosting site and downloaded it to my computer windows, but if the vps has ssh access you can connect with filezilla as if it were an ftp server, of course using the ssh port, the file is not very large, around 350 mb. In any case, after you have transferred the boot.wim file, bring it somewhere, in the same path create a folder where the file will be mounted (as if when you mount a disk file on linux). Open the cmd as an administrator (go to the folder where is the boot.wim file and the folder where to mount it) and to mount the file run the command:

DISM /Mount-Wim /WimFile:boot.wim /Index: 1 /MountDir:*folder name where to mount boot.wim*

Later you can add drivers with this command:

DISM /Image: *folder name where boot.wim is mounted* /Add-Driver /Driver: *folder where the driver files are saved (also files of several drivers)* /recurse

Keep in mind that each driver must contain at least one ".inf" file, if the drivers you downloaded only have one .exe file then you can try opening it with winrar and looking through the folders for an ".inf" file. just the .inf file, then extract the .inf file together with the files in the same folder, another thing that can happen is that the drivers you have downloaded are in .iso format, you have to unzip the iso file and give the folder to dism you have unzipped the ISO, or simply mount it and copy all the content in the folder that will be given to dism to install the drivers.

Now that you have installed the drivers in the boot.wim you have to unmount it, it's a very important step as it will actually modify boot.wim

DISM /Unmount-Wim /MountDir: *folder where you mounted boot.wim* /Commit

Now you have to redo all 3 commands by installing the same drivers, but with the difference that at the first command, instead of writing /Index:1 write /Index:2, because the file boot.wim has 2 index, if it would be the file install.wim then you should continue up to 6, because precisely has 6 index, I recommend it is very important, otherwise nothing will work.

After you have modified the boot.wim file, bring it back to the vps and, as seen in the video, replace the boot.wim file directly from the partition where the installation iso has been unpacked.

свернуть