[vfio-users] Windows 7 with OVMF?

[A de Beus]

I use Win 7 without a qxl screen (qxl only needed for initial setup) with pure OVMF/UEFI boot.  But... I have a Quadro K2000.  Perhaps if you install the virtio driver for the qxl prior to removing it, you'll be ok.  Or you can keep it on: it does no harm AFAIK.

> On Jul 6, 2016, at 9:52 AM, Thomas Lindroth <thomas.lindroth at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I got a GTX 970 card some days ago and decided to overhaul my setup. I
> don't want to rely on the VGA arbitration patch anymore but I also want
> to use windows 7. I know there are problems with win 7 but from my
> testing win 10 is not for me and I want to avoid it as long as possible.
> 
> I first attempted to forward the new gpu as usual and install win 7 but
> the installer would just hang at the boot splash. Turns out win 7 can do
> UEFI boot but it still tries to access VBE. I use OVMF pure,
> vfio-pci.disable_vga=1 and x-vga=off so that is not going to work.
> 
> By replacing the real gpu with the virtual qxl I could finish the
> installation but nvidia's driver refused to install because it couldn't
> find the right hardware. By adding both my real gpu and qxl I could
> install the drivers. I don't know which card is considered the primary
> in that setup. On the next reboot I got the Tianocore boot splash on
> both screens, windows boot slash on the qxl window only and finally the
> desktop on my real gpu. According to the device manager the qxl device
> had failed with "Code 43". I never bothered to install the virtio
> drivers for qxl.
> 
> The next logical step was to try to remove the qxl device but
> unfortunately windows bootloader will then fail:
> "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be
> the cause
> Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration
> data"
> 
> I know I'm not the only one using win 7 with UEFI but I'm wondering if
> other people also have to keep a extra virtual gpu for things to work?
> As far as I can tell everything works as it should so unless there is
> some downside to the extra device I'll just keep it?
> 
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