Console looks damaged (Windows 2000)

[sdettmer]

Hi,

I have a disk image from an old WIndows 2000 (possibly WIndows 2000 Server) system and wanted to look something up. I though using Proxmox would be elegant.

I created a new Proxmox VM (Type: Windows, Version: 2000, Graphics: Standard VGA, default i440fx, SeaBIOS, LSI53895A, ide, 1 VCPU, Type Pentium3, 2048 MB RAM, Network RTL8139) and to my surprise the boot loader was directly happy and bootet the image.

However, as soon as the start screen (which looks good) switches, I think showing the login prompt, the graphics get scrammbled (it reminds me of a system I once had with a memory fault). It's hard to describe so below a screenshot. It reacts to key strokes and with some phantasy I think I recognize the windows 2000 login screen. When I enter (wrong) credentials and enter, I get an different look, so I assume the Windows itself works, I think it is just the console failing.

Also pressing F8 has no effect unfortunately (to enter Windows boot options).

Does anyone has an idea what could cause this funny look? Any ideas what I should do to solve this? Others got W2K working, so I think i theory it should work.

 

[shrdlicka]

Hi,

have you taken a look at [1]. It suggests to set the display adapter to "cirrus". I didn't see an option for this in the GUI so you will have to edit the config file by hand. Make sure you shutdown the VM and go into /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf. There you can edit/add the "vga" parameter. It should look like this: vga: cirrus.

You can then start the VM and see if it works.


[1] https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#qm_display

 

[sdettmer]

Ahh F8 works if I open the Console in a new window (by simply clicking the Console button on left side of web GUI). When I activate Standard VGA, I was able to login!

Hi,

have you taken a look at [1]. It suggests to set the display adapter to "cirrus". I didn't see an option for this in the GUI so you will have to edit the config file by hand. Make sure you shutdown the VM and go into /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf. There you can edit/add the "vga" parameter. It should look like this: vga: cirrus.

You can then start the VM and see if it works.


[1] https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#qm_display

Hi,

thank you so much for your help.
I'm afraid I don't understand the file correctly.

I see options there and INI style sections like ''[snapshotboot1]'' - surely the same options for snapshots.
I had vga=std in a snapshot, but not on main section. According to documentation, vga=std is default, so if no vga= given, it should be that. However, I found it working, too: I have no ''vga='' line before ''[snapshotboot1]'', but it works in higher resolution. Windows says it uses Cirrus driver. I found no qemu.log to verify what it is really using. So it seems by creating the snapshot vga=std somehow got lost (unexpectedly) and vga defaults to cirrus? This is not entirely clear to me.

Now I added ''vga=cirrus'' to go sure nevertheless (some article calls it "harmful", but hey I don't think as harmful as Win2K itself ). I think this now should be the safe way and I now can look to the other issues.

Thanks so much for your help!