Vultr and Virtio Part 2 – Creating Your Custom VM

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At this point, you’ve already created your custom Windows ISO and are now ready to use it to deploy a Windows virtual machine on Vultr.

Deploy Your Windows Server

  1. Log in to your Vultr account
  2. From the Servers area, click Deploy New Server Deploy new server
  3. Choose a server location
  4. Under Server Type, select Upload ISO, then choose the custom ISO you uploaded earlier Select uploaded ISO
  5. Select the desired Server Size and any Additional Features as required
  6. Optionally provide a Server Name and Label
  7. Review your configuration and click Deploy Now Deploy now Vultr will now provision the instance in the background. This can take 15 - 20 minutes. Once complete, you can open the server console and begin the Windows installation.

Install Windows

  1. Once the server is fully deployed, click the ellipsis next to the instance and select View Console View console

  2. You should be presented with the Windows installer Windows setup If you still see the PXE boot screen, either wait a little longer or reboot the server. If the issue persists after 30 minutes, delete the server and redeploy it using the same ISO. Also confirm that the ISO is attached under Settings → Custom ISO.

  3. Proceed through the installer until you reach the disk selection screen. No disks available At this point, no disks will be visible because the storage driver hasn’t been loaded yet.

  4. Click Load driver Load driver

  5. Click Browse Browse drivers

  6. Browse to the VirtIO storage driver path on the mounted ISO: D:\virtio\viostor<winver>\amd64

    Replace <winver> with the appropriate Windows version (for example w10 for Windows 10 or 2k2012r2 for Windows Server 2012 R2).

  7. Select the driver when it appears VirtIO storage driver

  8. Click Next, the virtual disk should now be visible Disk available

  9. Partition and format the disk as required, then continue the Windows installation.

The Windows installer will now complete.

Post-Installation

Once Windows is installed, additional VirtIO drivers may still need to be installed, particularly for networking.

  1. Open **Device Manager **
  2. Identify any devices marked with a yellow exclamation icon under Other devices Device Manager missing drivers
  3. Right-click a device and select Update Driver
  4. Choose Browse my computer for drivers Browse for drivers
  5. Select the CD-ROM drive containing the ISO and ensure Include subfolders is enabled Include subfolders
  6. Repeat this process for each remaining device as required

Once all necessary drivers are installed, the VM should have full disk and network functionality and be ready for use.