[Qemu-discuss] Windows 7 slow boot

[Kyle Peterson]

I’m having a difficult time with windows 7 on my kvm/libvirt/qemu host.  
Booting from the ISO, the “Starting Windows” animation is very slow and it 
takes hours to reach the installation.  The actuall installation of windows is 
quick once it gets to that point.  When windows reboots after installation it 
takes hours at the “Starting Windows” screen.  Then once it gets to the desktop 
things work as they should until I reboot again.  The only thing that seems to 
help is giving the VM lots of cores.  1 core is way slower than 4.

I create the VM using virt-manager.  It looks like all of the hyperv 
optimizations are enabled.  I’ve tried using a qcow2 hdd image, a raw image and 
now I’m using a zfs zvol.  All types are slow.  I’ve tried using virtio, sata 
and ide for the hdd controller and the same results with each.  I’ve always 
left the cdrom device on IDE.

I’ve even tried using cirrius for the video. I’ve read lots of forum posts 
saying to try it but it didn’t help me.  

Here are the details, if you need anything else please ask.  I’ve been working 
on this for hours so I may have missed some important detail.

qemu 2.8 (have also tried with qemu 2.5 on ubuntu and get the same results 
there)
host os is arch linux container on ubuntu 16.04 host.  Linux based vms and 
freebsd vms all run with no issues.
host cpu is a intel xeon e31220 v2
16GB RAM

address@hidden ~]# uname -a
Linux arch 4.8.0-39-generic #42~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Feb 20 15:06:07 UTC 2017 
x86_64 GNU/Linux

This is my current attempt.  It’s currently sitting at the “Starting Windows” 
screen.  I’m trying to boot to Win 7 SP1 x64 ISO.  I have also tried a Win 7 
pre-sp1 64 ISO and also a 32 bit ISO…same problem with all of them.

/usr/sbin/qemu-system-x86_64 -name guest=win7,debug-threads=on -S -object 
secret,id=masterKey0,format=raw,file=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-25-win7/master-key.aes
 -machine pc-i440fx-2.8,accel=kvm,usb=off,vmport=off,dump-guest-core=off -cpu 
SandyBridge,+vme,+ds,+acpi,+ss,+ht,+tm,+pbe,+dtes64,+monitor,+ds_cpl,+vmx,+smx,+est,+tm2,+xtpr,+pdcm,+pcid,+osxsave,+arat,+xsaveopt,hv_time,hv_relaxed,hv_vapic,hv_spinlocks=0x1fff
 -m 4096 -realtime mlock=off -smp 4,sockets=4,cores=1,threads=1 -uuid 
62cb2165-696b-462d-a570-ff7b18ae46ac -no-user-config -nodefaults -chardev 
socket,id=charmonitor,path=/var/lib/libvirt/qemu/domain-25-win7/monitor.sock,server,nowait
 -mon chardev=charmonitor,id=monitor,mode=control -rtc 
base=localtime,driftfix=slew -global kvm-pit.lost_tick_policy=delay -no-hpet 
-no-shutdown -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s3=1 -global PIIX4_PM.disable_s4=1 -boot 
strict=on -device ich9-usb-ehci1,id=usb,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x7 -device 
ich9-usb-uhci1,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=0,bus=pci.0,multifunction=on,addr=0x5 
-device ich9-usb-uhci2,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=2,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x1 
-device ich9-usb-uhci3,masterbus=usb.0,firstport=4,bus=pci.0,addr=0x5.0x2 
-device ahci,id=sata0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x6 -device 
virtio-serial-pci,id=virtio-serial0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x7 -drive 
file=/dev/zvol/storage/kvm_root/win7,format=raw,if=none,id=drive-virtio-disk0,cache=none,aio=native
 -device 
virtio-blk-pci,scsi=off,bus=pci.0,addr=0x9,drive=drive-virtio-disk0,id=virtio-disk0,bootindex=2
 -drive 
file=/mnt/downloads/en_windows_7_professional_with_sp1_x64_dvd_u_676939.iso,format=raw,if=none,id=drive-ide0-0-1,readonly=on
 -device ide-cd,bus=ide.0,unit=1,drive=drive-ide0-0-1,id=ide0-0-1,bootindex=1 
-netdev tap,fd=23,id=hostnet0 -device 
virtio-net-pci,netdev=hostnet0,id=net0,mac=52:54:00:9d:d4:63,bus=pci.0,addr=0x3 
-chardev pty,id=charserial0 -device isa-serial,chardev=charserial0,id=serial0 
-chardev spicevmc,id=charchannel0,name=vdagent -device 
virtserialport,bus=virtio-serial0.0,nr=1,chardev=charchannel0,id=channel0,name=com.redhat.spice.0
 -device usb-tablet,id=input0,bus=usb.0,port=1 -spice 
port=5900,addr=127.0.0.1,disable-ticketing,image-compression=off,seamless-migration=on
 -device 
qxl-vga,id=video0,ram_size=67108864,vram_size=67108864,vram64_size_mb=0,vgamem_mb=16,max_outputs=1,bus=pci.0,addr=0x2
 -device intel-hda,id=sound0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x4 -device 
hda-duplex,id=sound0-codec0,bus=sound0.0,cad=0 -chardev 
spicevmc,id=charredir0,name=usbredir -device 
usb-redir,chardev=charredir0,id=redir0,bus=usb.0,port=2 -chardev 
spicevmc,id=charredir1,name=usbredir -device 
usb-redir,chardev=charredir1,id=redir1,bus=usb.0,port=3 -device 
virtio-balloon-pci,id=balloon0,bus=pci.0,addr=0x8 -msg timestamp=on