Proxmox on NUC 7: Running Windows 11? (Easy Setup Guide)

Okay, so I wanted to set up Windows 11 on my Intel NUC 7 using Proxmox. Let me tell you, it wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be, but I managed to get it working. I’ll walk you through my whole process, step by step.

First off, I made sure I had the latest Proxmox VE installed. I was working with version 8.1.3, just so you know. I grabbed an ISO for Windows 11, you can find those easily, and I also downloaded the VirtIO drivers ISO. These are crucial for getting everything running smoothly later on.

Before I could even start with Proxmox, I had to dive into the BIOS settings of my NUC. There were a bunch of virtualization options that needed to be enabled. I just went ahead and turned on everything that had “virtualization” or “VT” in the name. Better safe than sorry, right?

Next, I booted up the NUC with the Proxmox installation media. The installation process was pretty standard. I chose the Western Digital SSD for the install since I didn’t want to wipe my existing Windows 11 drive. This SSD would also hold all the virtual machines and containers I planned to set up later.

Creating the VM

Once Proxmox was up and running, I logged into the web interface and started creating the virtual machine. Here’s where things got a bit tricky because Windows 11 has some specific requirements.

• General: Gave the VM a name, nothing fancy.
• OS: Selected the Windows 11 ISO I downloaded earlier.
• System: This is important. I set the Machine to “q35” and the BIOS to “OVMF (UEFI)”. Also, made sure to add an EFI Disk and picked my storage. Added a TPM storage, checked “Add TPM”, and chose my storage as well.
• Disks: Changed the Bus/Device to “VirtIO Block” and made sure to enable “Discard”. Also, turned on “SSD emulation” just in case.
• CPU: Gave it a decent number of cores. I went with 4, but you do you. Set the type to “host”.
• Memory: Allocated enough RAM. I chose 8192 MB, which is 8 GB. Seemed like a good amount.
• Network: Used the “VirtIO (paravirtualized)” model. It just works better.

After the VM was created, I started it up. The Windows 11 installation began. It’s the usual Windows setup process, so I won’t bore you with those details. Just clicked through until it asked for a network connection. This is where you need those VirtIO drivers.

Since there was no network driver, I went back to the VM’s hardware settings in Proxmox and mounted the VirtIO drivers ISO to the CD/DVD drive. Back in the Windows setup, I loaded the network driver from the ISO. Boom, internet access! After that, I completed the Windows setup.

Post-Installation

Once Windows was fully installed, I still had to install all the other VirtIO drivers. I opened up Device Manager and went through each device that had a missing driver. For each one, I pointed it to the VirtIO drivers ISO and let it find the right driver. It took a bit of time, but eventually, everything was installed and working properly.

So, there you have it. That’s how I got Windows 11 running on Proxmox on my Intel NUC 7. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but it’s definitely doable. If you’re trying to do the same, just follow these steps, and you should be good to go. And remember, enabling those virtualization settings in the BIOS is key. Good luck!