Install Windows 11 in VirtualBox

This article will demonstrate how to install Windows 11 in VirtualBox.

In this tutorial, we will use VirtualBox 7 because it has new features that facilitate the installation of Windows 11.

Download Windows 11 Image

The first step is to download the Windows 11 image. We suggest that you always download it from the official Microsoft page.

In our installation we used the link below.

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/ windows11

Then choose the option Download Windows 11 Disk Image (ISO) for x64 devices. The figure below demonstrates the option to download the ISO image.

Download Windows 11

Next, choose the Windows language you want to download.

Select windows 11 language

Then, the option to download the Windows image will appear. First, choose the directory where you will download the image.

Download Windows 11 64-bit

Installing Windows 11 on Virtualbox

Now let’s start virtualbox and click on the “Machine – > New”.

Click Machine and New

After that, we will see a screen to create the virtual machine. And then, we will do some steps described below and presented in the figure below.

Step 1: Name your virtual machine.

Step 2: The directory where the virtual machine will be stored.

Step 3: Select the Windows 11 image that we have downloaded.

Step 4: We disable the Unattend Installation to be able to do the installation manually.

Now let’s click on “Next”.

Virtual machine config

The figure below shows the next configuration screen. On this screen, we will enter the amount of RAM and the number of cores for our virtual machine. It is worth mentioning that it is interesting to make the amount of RAM and CPU available without going over the green line.

Virtual Machine RAM and CPU

Now we will choose the size of our virtual disk to store the Windows 11 installation. In this case, we will use the size of 80 GB. However, as we are not using the “Pre-allocate Full Size” option, the virtual disk will start with a smaller size and may reach up to 80GB. In this way, we guarantee the dynamic use of our storage.

virtual hard disk

Very well, the figure below shows a summary of all our configuration and we can click on “Finish”.

virtualbox summary

Initial setup of Windows 11 in VirtualBox

Now we are going to start our virtual machine with Windows 11. As in the figure below, we will click on our virtual machine to do this.

click windows virtualbox

Next, a prompt will appear to press any key to boot from the CD.

starting virtual machine

Now we can enter information about the language and keyboard used. Enter the information relevant to your interest.

select language and keyboard

After entering the basic information, we will see a screen like the figure below and we will click on “Install now”.

click install now

Once the installation process has started, we will be asked to enter the (Product key) as in the figure below or click on the option “I don’t have a product key” and then finish the installation with your microsoft account.

select to install using key or account

If we choose “I don’t have a product key”, we will need to inform the type of license we have.

Type of windows 11

Then we will have the screen for us to agree with the terms.

Now we have two options, the first is to upgrade Windows, and the second is to do a custom install. We will use the second option, “Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)”.

Select Custom Install

Next, we will see the screen to select the disk space that Windows will use. We can see that, in this case, we have 80GB of space. That’s because we previously configured the virtual machine to have a size of 80GB.

Click Next

Now Windows will continue installing as shown below.

Installing …

After a while doing the installations, we will arrive at the screen below. On this screen, we are going to choose the region of our country.

Select country region

After that, Windows 11 will start doing Updates. In this case, the virtual machine has internet access because the host machine also has internet access.

Note. We can see that the Windows 11 virtual machine has the network in NAT mode. This configuration allows you to simplify the virtual machine’s internet access. To understand more about NAT, see this article by clicking HERE.

Updates

Now Windows will ask for the name that we will give the machine and information about the Microsoft account to perform the initial login in Windows 11.

Computer Name

Once you’ve entered your Microsoft account login information, the virtual machine will restart, and we’ll have our Windows 11 virtual machine ready.

Start to use

See more:

Increase VirtualBox disk size

VirtualBox: Bridge Network – When to use it?

Android with VirtualBox

OpenWRT in VirtualBox

Virtual Router with OpenWRT

Juliana Mascarenhas

Data Scientist and Master in Computer Modeling by LNCC.
Computer Engineer

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