Windows 10.qcow2

Mastering Virtualization: The Ultimate Guide to Using Windows 10.qcow2

In the world of open-source virtualization, few file extensions carry as much weight as .qcow2 (QEMU Copy-On-Write version 2). For developers, cybersecurity analysts, and Linux enthusiasts, running Windows 10 inside a Linux host is a daily necessity. The golden ticket to doing this efficiently is often a pre-configured or custom-built Windows 10.qcow2 image.

Flag -c enables compression.

Both VMs boot from the same base, but write changes to their own 100KB overlay. This saves immense disk space in lab environments. Windows 10.qcow2

  • Microsoft Edge WebDriver / Virtual Machines: Microsoft offers free, time-baked (90-day) VMs for testing. They currently provide .zip files containing Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and VMware images, but not native QCOW2. You can convert the VMware .vmdk file to .qcow2 using: 
    qemu-img convert -f vmdk Windows10.vmdk -O qcow2 Windows 10.qcow2
    This is 100% legal for testing web compatibility.

For libvirt (virt-manager), edit the VM XML: This is 100% legal for testing web compatibility

Create overlay (backing file)

qemu-img create -f qcow2 -b Windows\ 10.qcow2 overlay.qcow2
  • Microsoft provides Windows base images for Azure – can be converted to qcow2