A while ago, I set up a Windows guest on my Proxmox home server so I could test some features of the app I’m working on. It worked fine for the most part, but I later switched to UTM on my Mac for day-to-day work — mainly because local performance is just better.
Still, I figured it’d be useful to document my original setup in case someone else wants to go the Proxmox route. If you’re running a home server and want to spin up Windows 11, this guide walks through how to get everything working, based on the official Proxmox Windows 10 best practices with a few Windows 11 adjustments.
Step 1: Create a New VM in Proxmox
Start in the Proxmox web UI by creating a new virtual machine.
On the OS tab:
- ISO image: Choose the uploaded image
- Guest OS Type: Microsoft Windows 11/2022/2025
- Check “Add additional drive for VirtIO drivers”
- ISO image: Choose the uploaded VirtIO drivers
On the System tab:
- Check “Qemu Agent”
- EFI Storage: Choose storage
- Check Add TPM
- TPM Storage: Choose storage
- Leave everything else as default.
On the Disks tab:
- Leave everyting as default.
On the CPU tab:
- Type: select “host”
- Cores: set it to your preference. I set it to match the host CPU cores.
On the Memory tab:
- Set at least 4096 MiB of memory for Windows guests.
On the Network tab:
- Choose the Brige you want to use
- Model: make sure “VirtIO (paravirtualized)” is selected
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