Windows 11 is pickier about hardware than any version of Windows before it. It wants a TPM chip, it wants Secure Boot, and if either one is missing, Setup just refuses to continue. That's fine on a modern laptop. It's a different story when you're trying to install it inside a VM on Proxmox VE, where "TPM chip" isn't a physical thing sitting on a motherboard.
The good news: Proxmox VE can emulate all of it. A virtual TPM, UEFI firmware, Secure Boot — it's all there, you just have to turn it on in the right places before you boot the installer. Miss one setting and you'll either get stuck at "This PC can't run Windows 11" or the installer won't even see a hard disk to install onto.
This guide walks through building a Windows 11 VM in Proxmox VE 8.x or 9.x from scratch, in the order Proxmox actually asks for these settings, so you don't have to go back and rebuild the VM halfway through.
What You Will Learn
- Why Windows 11 needs settings that older Windows VMs never required
- How to configure UEFI, a virtual TPM, and Secure Boot in the Create VM wizard
- How to load VirtIO storage drivers during setup so Windows can actually see your disk
- How to fix the two errors almost everyone hits on their first attempt
- What to install after Windows boots so the VM actually performs well
What Is This Feature?
Strictly speaking, there's no single "Windows 11 feature" in Proxmox. What you're really configuring is a set of virtual hardware pieces that Windows 11 checks for during setup:
OVMF is Proxmox's UEFI firmware option. Regular BIOS (called SeaBIOS in Proxmox) boots the way PCs did in the 1990s. OVMF emulates a modern UEFI motherboard instead, which Windows 11 requires.
A virtual TPM (vTPM) is a software-emulated version of the small security chip that stores encryption keys on real hardware — the thing BitLocker and Windows Hello rely on. Proxmox can create one per VM and store its state alongside the VM's disk.
VirtIO is a set of paravirtualized drivers built for virtualization. Instead of pretending to be a specific real SATA controller or network card, VirtIO devices talk directly to the hypervisor, which is faster and lighter on CPU. The catch: Windows doesn't ship with VirtIO drivers built in, so you have to hand them to the installer on a separate virtual CD.
Why Would You Use It?
Maybe you need a Windows 11 box to run one stubborn piece of software that doesn't have a Linux equivalent. Maybe you're testing group policy changes before rolling them out at work, or you want a disposable Windows desktop you can snapshot before doing something risky. A few reasons people spin up Windows 11 on Proxmox specifically:
- Running Windows-only software (accounting tools, CAD programs, specific games) alongside your Linux workloads on the same box
- Testing software across a clean Windows 11 install without touching real hardware
- Building a remote desktop you can access from anywhere, snapshot before changes, and roll back in seconds if something breaks
Honestly, if all you need is a quick Windows sandbox with no GPU or USB device access, a VM is much less hassle than dual-booting or keeping a spare physical machine around.
Prerequisites
Before you start, get these three things in place:
- A working Proxmox VE 8.x or 9.x install with at least one storage location for ISOs and one for VM disks
- A Windows 11 ISO — download it directly from Microsoft's Windows 11 download page using the "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)" option
- The VirtIO driver ISO for Windows, built and hosted by the Fedora project at fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win — grab
virtio-win.isofrom the stable-virtio folder
You'll also want at least 4 GB of RAM free for the VM (8 GB is more realistic if you plan to actually use it) and around 64 GB of free disk space. Windows 11 itself isn't huge, but updates pile up fast.
Step-by-Step Tutorial
1. Upload both ISOs
In the Proxmox web interface, click your storage (usually local) in the left tree, open ISO Images, and click Upload. Do this twice — once for the Windows 11 ISO, once for virtio-win.iso. On a decent connection this takes a few minutes; the Windows ISO alone is around 5-6 GB.
2. Start the Create VM wizard
Click Create VM in the top right corner. On the General tab, give it a VM ID and a name like win11-test. Nothing unusual here yet.
3. OS tab
Select your uploaded Windows 11 ISO under Use CD/DVD disc image file (iso). For Guest OS, set the type to Microsoft Windows and the version to 11/2022/2025. This isn't cosmetic — it changes some of the default hardware Proxmox picks on later tabs.
4. System tab — this is the one people get wrong
Three settings here matter a lot for Windows 11:
- Set Machine to
q35. This emulates a newer chipset with native PCIe support, which OVMF expects. - Set BIOS to OVMF (UEFI). Proxmox will prompt you to add an EFI disk — accept it, and pick any storage that supports it (local-lvm or a ZFS pool both work fine).
- Tick Add TPM and leave the version at v2.0. Pick a storage location for it, same as the EFI disk.
Leave SCSI Controller at VirtIO SCSI single — that's the default on newer Proxmox versions and it's the one you want.
5. Disks tab
The default bus type should already be SCSI, which rides on the VirtIO SCSI controller you just picked. Set a disk size — 64 GB is a reasonable floor for Windows 11 plus a handful of applications and updates. If your storage is SSD-backed, tick Discard so Windows can trim deleted blocks later.
6. CPU tab
The default CPU type, kvm64, is missing some instruction set extensions Windows 11 checks for during Setup — this is a separate check from the TPM/Secure Boot one, and it can cause its own failure. Change Type to x86-64-v2-AES if it's available in your Proxmox version, or to host if you don't need to live-migrate this VM to different hardware later. Give it at least 2 cores.
7. Memory tab
Set at least 4096 MB. I'd go with 8192 MB if the host can spare it — Windows 11 with a browser and Office open eats memory fast, and ballooning it down later is easy if you need the RAM back.
8. Network tab
Leave the model on VirtIO (paravirtualized) and the bridge on vmbr0 (or whichever bridge you use for guest traffic). Don't overthink this tab.
9. Confirm and add the VirtIO driver disc
On the Confirm tab, review everything, then click Finish — but don't start the VM yet. Instead, open the new VM, go to Hardware, click Add > CD/DVD Drive, and attach the virtio-win.iso you uploaded earlier as a second optical drive. You'll need it in a minute.
10. Boot the VM and load the storage driver
Start the VM and open its console. Windows Setup boots and walks you through language and edition selection. When you reach "Where do you want to install Windows?", the list will be empty — no drives to select. That's expected. Click Load driver, then Browse, and navigate to the VirtIO CD drive: vioscsi\w11\amd64. Select it, click Next, and your 64 GB disk should appear in the list.
Pick the disk, click Next, and Windows installs normally from there — it just takes the usual 15-20 minutes plus a couple of reboots.
11. Finish setup and install the rest of the VirtIO drivers
Once you're at the Windows desktop, open the VirtIO CD in File Explorer and run virtio-win-gt-x64.msi. This installs the network driver, balloon driver (for dynamic memory), and a few other pieces in one go — much less tedious than hunting down each driver in Device Manager one at a time.
Also run guest-agent\qemu-ga-x86_64.msi from the same disc, then go back to the VM's Options tab in Proxmox and enable QEMU Guest Agent. This lets Proxmox see the VM's actual IP address, shut it down cleanly from the web UI, and take consistent snapshots.
Commands Explained
Everything above works fine through the web UI, but if you ever want to script this or check on the VM from the shell, a few qm commands are worth knowing:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
qm status 110 | Shows whether VM 110 is running or stopped |
qm config 110 | Prints the VM's full configuration — CPU, disks, TPM, EFI disk, everything |
qm start 110 / qm stop 110 | Starts or hard-stops the VM from the shell instead of the web UI |
qm set 110 --memory 8192 | Changes a setting — here, bumping RAM to 8 GB — without opening the wizard again |
Replace 110 with your actual VM ID, which you can find in the left-hand tree in the web interface.
Common Errors
"This PC can't run Windows 11" during Setup, or Setup silently loops back to the language screen. Almost always means BIOS is still set to SeaBIOS instead of OVMF, or the TPM device wasn't added. Shut the VM down, go to the System tab, and double-check both.
Setup shows no drives at all on the install location screen. This is the VirtIO driver problem, not a missing disk. Windows genuinely can't see your SCSI-attached virtual disk because it has no idea what a VirtIO SCSI controller is. Load the driver from vioscsi\w11\amd64 on the attached VirtIO ISO, as covered in step 10 above.
VM boots to a black screen after finishing setup. Usually a display driver mismatch. Give it a minute — Windows sometimes needs to finish first-boot configuration with the display stuck on a low-res default before it repaints. If it's still black after a few minutes, switch the Display device (under Hardware) from the default to VirtIO-GPU and reboot.
"A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing" right at the very start of Setup, before you even reach partitioning. This means the Windows ISO itself isn't attached correctly, or you're booting from the VirtIO ISO by mistake. Check the Boot Order in Hardware settings — the Windows ISO's virtual drive needs to be first.
Troubleshooting
If the VM won't boot at all after you've added the EFI disk and TPM, check the boot order first: Hardware > Options > Boot Order. It's easy to add the VirtIO CD drive and have Proxmox quietly move it ahead of your main disk.
If Windows install stalls at exactly 0% or hangs for more than ten minutes on the "Getting files ready for installation" screen, it's often not actually stuck — check the VM's CPU usage in the Proxmox summary tab. If it's pegged near 100%, give it a little time. If it's flatlined at 0%, cancel and restart the VM; a corrupted ISO upload is the usual cause, and re-uploading fixes it.
Networking not working after install even though you picked VirtIO? That's expected until you run the VirtIO guest tools installer from step 11 — Windows has no built-in driver for a VirtIO NIC, so it just shows as an unrecognized device in Device Manager until then.
Best Practices
A few things worth doing once the VM is up and running:
- Take a snapshot right after the initial setup and driver install, before you install any applications. If Windows Update breaks something later, you've got a clean point to roll back to.
- Enable the QEMU Guest Agent (covered above) — without it, shutting the VM down from Proxmox just pulls the power, which is a bad habit to get into with a Windows install.
- Don't skip the CPU type change. Running with the default
kvm64type sometimes works today and then fails a Windows Update's compatibility check months later when Microsoft tightens the CPU requirement checks further. - If you're only using this VM for one or two apps, resist the urge to over-allocate cores. Two vCPUs is plenty for most single-user desktop workloads — more cores just means more contention if you're running several VMs on the same host.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a Windows 11 license to follow this guide?
You can install and use Windows 11 without entering a product key, though you'll see a watermark and some personalization options will be locked until you activate it with a valid license.
Can I skip the TPM and Secure Boot requirements instead of emulating them?
Microsoft does publish registry bypasses for bare-metal installs, but on Proxmox it's genuinely less work to just add the vTPM and switch to OVMF — both take one click each in the wizard.
Will this VM run games or GPU-heavy software well?
Not without GPU passthrough, which is a separate and considerably more involved setup. Without it, you're limited to the emulated VirtIO-GPU or standard VGA display — fine for desktop work, not for gaming.
Can I convert an existing Windows 11 VM from SeaBIOS/i440fx to OVMF/q35 later?
Not cleanly. Switching BIOS type after Windows is already installed usually results in a boot failure, since Windows' boot configuration is tied to the firmware type it was installed under. It's faster to rebuild the VM than to repair one.
Why does Microsoft's ISO download page ask about my browser?
Microsoft's download tool tries to detect if you're on Windows and steers you toward the Media Creation Tool instead of a direct ISO link. If that happens, either use a different browser's user-agent or look for the "Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO)" section further down the same page.
Conclusion
The whole process comes down to three things Windows 11 insists on that older Windows versions never asked for: UEFI instead of legacy BIOS, a TPM, and drivers that Windows doesn't ship with. Get those three right in the System tab and load the VirtIO driver at the one point Setup asks for it, and the rest of the install is identical to installing Windows on real hardware.
Once it's running, spend the extra five minutes installing the VirtIO guest tools and the QEMU Guest Agent. It's a small step that saves you from a sluggish, half-working VM later.