Development is moving forward, and our increase of the parameters of virtual servers at the beginning of the year must be followed up with driver upgrades. This is simpler with a Unix-based operating system, but with Windows it is necessary to tweak constantly. Therefore, a new service build of drivers for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012 is available.
The drivers are now available at the website https://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Virtio as an installation program, which correctly installs all VirtIO drivers, including new virtio-scsi drivers, which are intended for upcoming services. The installer also contains the QEMU Guest Agent service for better cooperation with the virtual machine manager and the option of automatic configuration of system timers, so that the virtual timer HPET (High Precision Event Timer) is used as a signal source.
The new drivers have already been included in the installation media. Therefore, if you reinstall your server, you will not need to download and install the specified file.
For non-updated virtual servers that still use drivers (virtio-net, virtio-blk, virtio-serial, virtio-balloon) from the beginning of 2011, INSTALLATION IS NECESSARY, because these drivers contain an error that causes system crashes (a blue screen with the error message IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL), and the likelihood of their occurrence now in the newly prepared virtual machine manager will increase even more due to the virtual machine manager’s much quicker reaction time.
List of changes:
- virtio-blk
correction of IO blocking during a large volume of random writing
- virtio-serial
automatic detection of user interfaces (preparation for a virtual user communication port)
- virtio-net
QoS support
zerocopy support for UDP streams
- virtio-scsi
driver newly added, not yet used, prepared for additional services
- virtio-ballon
much faster system booting (direct virtio calling instead of ACPI)
- qxl
correction of drawing with HW cursor
optimisation of drawing speed
HW jpeg compression for transfer to VNC console
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qemu-guest-agent
new service ensuring better integration with the virtual machine manager
