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docs(create-windows-vm): virtio-scsi bus and Hyper-V enlightenments guidance#1076

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docs(create-windows-vm): virtio-scsi bus and Hyper-V enlightenments guidance#1076
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abonillabeeche:docs-windows-vm-tuning

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Summary

Adds guidance to the Windows VM creation documentation on three areas that operators typically need to configure by hand today:

  1. Volumes tab, rootdisk Bus — recommend SCSI (virtio-scsi) for Windows workloads that do sustained writes. virtio-scsi supports multiple queues and has a more efficient DISCARD path than virtio-blk. SATA remains a compatible fallback.
  2. Advanced Options, Cloud Config — clarify that this field IS processed on Windows images that ship with Cloudbase-Init. The previous wording ("not applied to Windows-based VMs") was too broad.
  3. Networks tab, Model — note that e1000 is a safe default while paravirtualized drivers are still being installed, and that switching to virtio after VMDP is loaded gives higher throughput and lower CPU overhead.

Adds a new Recommended Tuning section before Known Issues documenting how to enable KubeVirt's Hyper-V TLFS enlightenments on Windows guests, with the full YAML block and a verification command. This is a well-known Windows-on-KVM tuning that most people rediscover the hard way; documenting it in the VM creation page surfaces it at the right moment.

Same content is applied to both:

  • `docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md` (main)
  • `versioned_docs/version-v1.8/vm/create-windows-vm.md` (v1.8)

Notes

Documentation-only. No behavior changes.

…tenments

Update the Volumes tab guidance to recommend the SCSI bus (virtio-scsi)
for Windows workloads that do sustained writes; virtio-scsi supports
multiple queues and has a more efficient DISCARD path than virtio-blk.

Clarify that the Cloud Config field is processed on Windows images that
include Cloudbase-Init (rather than being ignored outright).

Note that after VMDP is installed the network model can be switched
from e1000 to virtio for better throughput.

Add a new "Recommended Tuning" section documenting KubeVirt's Hyper-V
TLFS enlightenments as a suggested performance tuning for Windows
guests, with the full YAML block and a verification command.

Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
@abonillabeeche
abonillabeeche force-pushed the docs-windows-vm-tuning branch from 3bf9952 to 3f2175f Compare July 10, 2026 01:06

@jillian-maroket jillian-maroket left a comment

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Review done

Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
Comment thread docs/vm/create-windows-vm.md Outdated
abonillabeeche and others added 7 commits July 13, 2026 10:38
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jillian Maroket <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Bonilla <[email protected]>

@jillian-maroket jillian-maroket left a comment

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LGTM. Thanks!

@mergify

mergify Bot commented Jul 14, 2026

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Tick the box to add this pull request to the merge queue (same as @mergifyio queue).

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2 participants