Eric Radman : a Journal

Bhyve and Windows 2025

The Windows 2025 and Windows 11 Evaluation is fully functional, with the minor annoyance that it shuts down automatically after 1 hour. See also: automate configuration using rset(1).

VirtIO and Startup

To enable Windows networking we will need the Windows VirtIO Drivers. Convert the image using 

pkg install qemu
qemu-img convert -f vhdx -O raw WinServer2025.vhdx winsrv2025.img
fetch https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

Converting vhdx to qcow2 may not work. Try raw instead. 

kldload tpm
name="winsrv2025"
vncport="5907"
bhyve -c 2 -m 8G -w -H \
      -s 0,hostbridge \
      -s 3,ahci-hd,/vm/$name.img \
      -s 4,ahci-cd,/vm/virtio-win.iso \
      -s 10,virtio-net,tap7,mac=00:0c:29:dc:df:79 \
      -s 29,fbuf,tcp=0.0.0.0:$vncport,w=800,h=600 \
      -s 30,xhci,tablet \
      -s 31,lpc \
      -l tpm,passthru,/dev/tpm0 \
      -l bootrom,/usr/local/share/uefi-firmware/BHYVE_UEFI.fd \
       $name

Caveats