Overview
This guide walks through installing Windows from scratch using the Custom ISO feature of the VPS panel, rather than the built-in Reinstall tab. This is the only way to install Windows if your account is not eligible for the one-click Windows Server reinstall. See Windows Server Support for eligibility. Because our virtual servers present disks and network adapters as paravirtualized VirtIO devices, the Windows installer will not see a disk to install to until you load the VirtIO drivers during setup. This guide covers that step in detail.What You Will Need
- A Windows ISO (see Step 1)
- The VirtIO driver ISO (see Step 2)
- Access to the VPS panel for your server, with enough of your 10 GiB Custom ISO quota free for both images
Step 1: Download a Windows ISO
You need a direct download link to a Windows ISO: the panel downloads the ISO to our storage from a URL you provide, it does not accept a file upload. For Windows Server, Microsoft’s Evaluation Center provides free evaluation ISOs:
Step 2: Download the VirtIO Driver ISO
VirtIO is the paravirtualized hardware interface our hypervisors use for virtual disks and network adapters. Windows does not include these drivers out of the box, so without them the installer cannot see a disk to install to, and networking will not work after installation. The official, upstream-maintained build is published by the Fedoravirtio-win project:
Step 3: Upload Both ISOs
Follow our ISO Mounting guide to add both the Windows ISO and the VirtIO ISO under the “Custom ISOs” tab, using the links from the previous two steps. Each download can take 5-10 minutes.
The ISO can take 20-30 minutes to download (or longer). Please note that the download may hang at 99% while it uploads to our global ISO repository.
Step 4: Mount the ISOs
1
Mount the Windows ISO
From the “Mount ISO” tab on your server, mount the Windows ISO you downloaded. This sets your server to boot from it on the next restart.
2
Leave the VirtIO ISO unmounted for now
The VPS panel only allows one ISO to be mounted to a server at a time, so you can’t attach the VirtIO ISO alongside the Windows ISO yet. You’ll swap to it during Step 6.
3
Check the boot order
Confirm the server is set to boot from the mounted ISO first. This is usually set automatically when you mount an ISO, but you can check or change it under Settings → Boot Order in the VPS panel.
Step 5: Start Windows Setup
Restart the server so it boots from the mounted Windows ISO and click on the VNC button which will open the server console.
Work through the initial Windows Setup screens: language and keyboard layout, then Install now. If prompted, choose the edition you want to install (for evaluation media, this is typically the Standard or Datacenter Desktop Experience edition), accept the license terms, and choose Install Windows Server.
Step 6: Load the VirtIO Storage Driver
On the “Where do you want to install Windows?” screen, no disks will be listed, because Windows doesn’t have a driver for our virtual disk controller yet.1
Click Load driver
Click Load driver
2
Mount the VirtIO ISO
Go back to the VPS panel, unmount the Windows ISO, and mount the VirtIO ISO in its place. Mounting an ISO hot-swaps the virtual CD/DVD drive’s contents to the server while it’s running, so there’s no need to restart. Click “Browse” so that it picks up the new disk.
3
Browse to the storage driver
Navigate to the driver matching your disk controller, Windows version, and CPU architecture. Most of our servers use Replace 
Click OK.
vioscsi, so browse to:2k25 with the folder matching your Windows version (for example 2k22 for Server 2022, or 2k25 for Server 2025).Replace D:\ with whatever drive letter the VirtIO ISO was mounted as.Click OK.4
Select and install the driver
Select the driver that appears and click Install. Your virtual disk should now appear in the list.
5
Re-mount the Windows ISO
If you unmounted the Windows ISO in favor of the VirtIO ISO earlier, go back to the panel, unmount the VirtIO ISO, and re-mount the Windows ISO so setup can continue reading installation files from it.
6
Delete Partitions
If the server was installed with a Linux template, you may have to delete the existing partitions. For every partition that appears, click “Bring Disk Online” (if the option is available) and delete the partition.
Step 7: Finish the Installation
Select the biggest sized disk and click Next to begin copying files. The server will reboot itself a few times during this process. This is normal; let it continue booting from the disk rather than the ISO again.
Once it reaches the out-of-box setup screen, follow the prompts to set your Administrator password and finish configuration.
Step 8: Install the Remaining VirtIO Drivers
The storage driver you loaded during setup is enough to boot Windows, but the network adapter, balloon (memory management) driver, and other VirtIO devices still need drivers installed from inside Windows.1
Mount the VirtIO ISO
Back in the VPS panel, mount the VirtIO ISO to the server if it isn’t already mounted.
2
Run the guest tools installer
Open the VirtIO drive from inside Windows and run
virtio-win-gt-x64.msi (or virtio-win-guest-tools.exe on older builds). This installs all of the remaining VirtIO drivers, plus the QEMU guest agent, in one pass.3
Confirm networking works
After the installer finishes and you reboot, check Device Manager for any devices still missing a driver, and confirm the server has network connectivity.
Step 9: Configure a Static IP
Windows will not have network connectivity until it’s configured with the static IP details assigned to your server. These details are on the “Overview” tab of your server in the VPS panel: IPv4 Address, Gateway, and Netmask. Open PowerShell as Administrator and find the interface alias for your network adapter:<InterfaceAlias>, <IPv4Address>, <PrefixLength>, and <Gateway> below with the interface name from the previous command and the IPv4 address, netmask, and gateway from the Overview tab. The netmask needs to be converted to CIDR prefix length (for example, 255.255.255.0 is /24):
Get-NetAdapter shows an alias of Ethernet, your IPv4 address is 203.0.113.10, your netmask is 255.255.255.0 (/24), and your gateway is 203.0.113.1:
Common netmask to CIDR prefix length conversions:
255.255.255.0 = /24, 255.255.254.0 = /23, 255.255.252.0 = /22, 255.255.255.128 = /25.Step 10: Unmount the ISOs
Once Windows is installed and working, return to the VPS panel and unmount both ISOs from your server. Then, under Settings → Boot Order, set the boot order back to boot from the hard disk instead of the ISO. This avoids Windows Setup launching again on your next restart.An ISO must be unmounted from every server using it before it can be deleted from your Custom ISOs quota.
Frequently Asked Questions
Windows Setup still shows no disks after loading the vioscsi driver. What now?
Windows Setup still shows no disks after loading the vioscsi driver. What now?
Double check you browsed to the folder matching your CPU architecture (
amd64) and Windows version. If vioscsi doesn’t produce a driver, try the viostor folder instead. Older images use the virtio-blk controller rather than virtio-scsi.Do I need to load the network driver during setup too?
Do I need to load the network driver during setup too?
No. Setup only needs a storage driver to see the disk. The network driver, along with the rest of the VirtIO drivers, can be installed after Windows is up, in Step 8.
Can I reuse the same VirtIO ISO for multiple servers?
Can I reuse the same VirtIO ISO for multiple servers?
Yes. Once it’s downloaded to your account, you can mount it on any of your servers without downloading it again.
Is this covered by support?
Is this covered by support?
No. Manual installs through Custom ISO are entirely self-service. See Windows Server Support for what is and isn’t supported.