Lean Windows 11 Office VM for GNOME Boxes

Minimal Windows 11 + Microsoft Office, optimized for GNOME Boxes. ~15GB on disk.

Quickstart

make install

Then open GNOME Boxes. The VM will appear ready to start.

First boot: You may see a blue Recovery screen — this is normal. Press Enter to continue. Windows is just adjusting to the new VM environment.

Default user: Flash
First thing to do: Activate Windows and Office with your licenses.

Maintenance

make compress    # Reclaim space after Windows updates or cleanup
make backup      # Backup the image before risky operations
make clean       # Remove backups and temp files
make uninstall   # Remove VM, GNOME Boxes and configs (keeps image)
make uninstall IMAGE=1  # Also delete the image

Need More Space?

The image ships with ~2GB free on C:. To expand, open PowerShell as Administrator inside Windows:

Get-PartitionSupportedSize -DriveLetter C   # check available space
Resize-Partition -DriveLetter C -Size 25GB  # expand to desired size

What's Included

• Windows 11 (tiny11 base)
• Microsoft Office (Click-to-Run)
• SPICE Guest Tools

Technical Details

• Format: qcow2 with zlib compression
• Boot: BIOS/MBR (not UEFI)
• Machine type: pc-i440fx

See STEPS.md for the full process used to build this image.

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Created: February 2026