This creates a 40GB sparse file.
Windows 10 on ARM is Microsoft’s effort to bring the Windows desktop experience to ARM-based SoCs, offering long battery life and always-on connectivity while preserving many Windows applications through emulation. Running Windows 10 ARM inside a virtual machine often uses QEMU/KVM and the qcow2 disk image format — a combination that’s flexible but requires attention to a few platform-specific details. windows 10 arm qcow2
qemu-system-aarch64 \ -M virt \ -cpu cortex-a57 \ -m 4G \ -bios QEMU_EFI.fd \ -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 \ -drive if=none,file=windows10-arm.qcow2,id=hd0 \ -device virtio-gpu-pci \ -cdrom win10arm.iso This creates a 40GB sparse file
Windows 10 ARM QCOW2 is technically possible but not recommended for production or daily use. Prefer Windows 11 ARM or use raw disk format for better stability. qemu-system-aarch64 \ -M virt \ -cpu cortex-a57 \
: You can sometimes find VHDX (not QCOW2) images via the Windows Insider Preview program , though these have largely transitioned to Windows 11.