Windows 10 Arm Qcow2 -

Last updated: May 2026. Tested with QEMU 9.0, Windows 10 ARM64 Build 19045, and Apple M3 Pro host.

To keep your QCOW2 file from growing indefinitely, run this in Windows as Admin:

fsutil behavior set DisableDeleteNotify 0

Then, schedule regular optimization (Defragment and Optimize Drives → Optimize for SSD).

Windows 10 on ARM is not publicly downloadable via Microsoft’s normal consumer ISO pages. It is distributed through:

Legal Note: You need a valid Windows 10 license. The ARM64 version uses the same license key as x86/x64 Windows 10. windows 10 arm qcow2

The qcow2 format has performance knobs. When creating the image, consider:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 -o cluster_size=64k,preallocation=falloc win10arm.qcow2 40G

QEMU + HVF (Hypervisor.framework) gives near-native speed.

qemu-system-aarch64 -accel hvf -cpu host -M virt,highmem=off ...

Note: High Sierra or later. No need for Rosetta 2 for QEMU itself, but Windows 10 ARM will emulate x86 apps.

While pre-built QCOW2 images exist on various file-sharing platforms (often of questionable legality or safety), the recommended route is creating your own. Last updated: May 2026

1. Acquire the ISO: Since Microsoft does not offer a public download for the ARM64 ISO, users typically have to resort to building an ISO from UUP (Unified Update Platform) files using scripts available in the open-source community.

2. Create the Disk: Using the qemu-img tool in Linux, you create a blank QCOW2 container.

qemu-img create -f qcow2 windows10-arm.qcow2 40G

This creates a disk that can grow up to 40GB but starts at only a few megabytes.

3. The Boot Process: You must mount the ISO and the QCOW2 file in QEMU, pointing the emulator to the necessary UEFI firmware. To keep your QCOW2 file from growing indefinitely,

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

If you have an ISO instead of a VHDX, create a blank qcow2 disk:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 win10arm.qcow2 40G

This creates a 40GB sparse file.

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install qemu-system-arm qemu-efi-aarch64 qemu-utils

On macOS (Homebrew):

brew install qemu

On Windows (via Chocolatey or direct):

choco install qemu