Which operating system is the best performer when virtualized? I was told that XP is not optimized for virtualization which makes a lot of sense considering its age, so I want to ask the community even further to expand my knowledge, thanks! 
[SOLVED] Best Windows OS for virtualization? (XP vs 7 vs 10)
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Since some time Win10 is also working fine. But best results we achieved with win7 and win Server 2012r2. Depending on situation...
Yes, it's not optimized, yet the fastest of the mentioned ones due to its old age, smaller code base, smaller requirements etc. With respect to "best performer", it is the fastest - as is DOS. It boots up in under a second .. but what can you do with it nowadays? Same is with XP - also regarding the ongoing increase in attack surface. Do not use unsupported OSes and also do not omit patching supported OSes ...
Windows 10 is the working fine as @fireon already stated, yet it has some drawbacks:
Continous Windows 10 updates (the big ones like anniversary etc.) require at least 2 GB of RAM to run. This is huge for a small VM that does e.g. some simple task. You can pull it down to approx. 768 MB for just running, yet you have to increase the RAM to update. XP on the other hand is much "smaller" and runs at about 192 MB smoothly. If you only want to run one specific program, e.g. a VPN client - Windows in general is a lousy optimized OS for that purpose. Best is a small Linux, e.g. Alpine Linux with 32 MB of RAM and max. 64 MB space.
On the other hand, you always have the licensing issue with desktop operating system inside a virtualized environment. 2012r2 with datacenter edition is much better there. The server can also be stripped down better to bare minimum and even without a GUI. Yet not all programs run fine on a server class windows system.
So which, in your own opinion and experience, is the best windows OS to run virtually and less painfully for my proxmox node?
I'd say @fireon already answered that - but in general:
The ones you have licenses for :-D
AFAIK: Windows Desktop cannot be virtualized legally except you're running enterprise edition, so 2012r2 is the "go-to" solution for most of the things. Depending on what you need, this can work or cannot - depends on the use case.
Keep in mind that PVE is a virtualization environment for server operating systems, the desktop integration is explicitly not part so running games or doing graphics intensive stuff could work, yet there are better hypervisors for that.
Is this why windows 7 aero mode is not working? Is it that graphically taxing? Thanks to those who replied
We use Windows 2012r2 Server with NVIDIA Passth. for CAD (tested with gaming ). We use Windows10 also with Spice on Destkop for customer. That is working also really fine. But yes, everything is depending on situation and programms.
). We use Windows10 also with Spice on Destkop for customer. That is working also really fine. But yes, everything is depending on situation and programms.