bug: Windows Server has no network post-install

[ralight]

I created a new vm with

quickget windows-server 2019
quickemu --vm windows-server-2019.conf

After carrying out the manual installation and rebooting a few times, there was no networking and no network interface shown in the network settings. Looking in the Device Manager in Control Panel, I could see an Ethernet adapter was present, but "unknown".

I edited the file windows-server-2019/windows-server-2019.sh and changed the line -device virtio-net,netdev=nic to -device e1000,netdev=nic then ran that script by hand. When Windows booted, I had networking available.

[flexiondotorg]

This is sort of expected.

Unlike Windows 10 and 11, Quickemu doesn't automatically install the VirtIO drivers for Windows Server editions, so they need to be installed manually. Or, as you did, coerce QEMU to use a well-supported network interface.

I'm not sure how best to tackle this :thinking:

The easiest is to have quickemu default to the e1000 device for Windows Server VMs. An optimal solution would be to automatically expose/install the VirtIO drivers for Windows Server installs.

[philclifford]

How about defaulting to the e1000 device approach (easy and working), then providing the option (parameter or ENV test ? ) for users who wish to "pollute"/enhance their server VM with VirtIO drivers to trigger the installation and configuration of VirtIO. Just thinking that users with use-cases for a server VM might prefer the option whether or not to pre-install anything to their base install.

[ralight]

In my situation I just have the need to reproduce a bug in some software, with the reporter running Windows Server 2019. The simple "just works" approach is fine for that. I don't anticipate any long term use.

[ralight]

Thank you!