Windows

Running Windows guests is experimentally supported since Lima v2.2.

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The user password is randomly generated and stored in the %USERPROFILE%\password.txt file in the VM. Consider changing it after the first login.

By default, Windows 11 enables Trusted Platform Module (TPM) emulation because of the hardware requirement. However, you can turn it off (in that case, lima bypasses the hardware check). In order to use TPM emulation, you need to install swtpm on your host computer.

For Windows server 2025, TPM emulation is disabled by default. However, there are some benefits if you enable TPM emulation. For example, you can install BitLocker disk encryption on your VM.

Difference from Linux guests

• Several features are not implemented yet. See Caveats below.

Caveats

• For Windows 11 guest, you need to download the installer ISO manually from here
• QEMU is the only VM driver that supports Windows guests
• Only plain mode is supported (no file mount, no dynamic port-forwarding)
• Booting Windows 11 may occasionally fail. If it fails, please delete the instance and try it again from scratch.