Qvm-create-windows-qube Qubes Windows Tools install hangs infinitely

Greetings,

I have had persistent issues getting a Windows Qube with tools features such as clipboard working without bugged/dysfunctional networking (see my previous post here for details: Qubes Tools on Windows 10 and loss of networking - #4 by rjt) and for this reason, I stopped trying to manually setup the Qube and gravitated towards the “qvm-create-windows-qube” command.

However, qvm-create-windows-qube itself is giving me consistent issues. I am running it on a Windows 10 x64 ISO with the win10x64-pro.xml answer file. The installation goes smoothly up until the following terminal output from dom0: “Completing setup of Qubes Windows Tools…”

Upon this line of output from qvm-create-windows-qube, Windows 10 boots into its UI and logs in. Then does nothing, and hangs here forever. Regardless of how long I wait, whether I shutdown or kill the Qube, etc. qvm-create-windows-qube never moves forward beyond this step.

Looking at my “Services” list in Windows 10 I can confirm the Qubes Tools services were installed (Qubes RPC, etc) as well as the Xen drivers. However, interestingly, Qubes RPC is not started and if I try to manually start it, it immediately exits. Furthermore, the networking on this Qube is broken: although the Xen network adapter is visible from within Windows, I cannot access the internet through ping, web browser etc.

Does anyone have any insight into what may be causing qvm-create-windows-qube to permanently hang on the step of waiting for Qubes Tools to complete installation?

Hi there. I unfortunately meet the exact same issue with qvm-create-windows-qube in Qubes 4.1.
No solution so far, I end up with a working Windows Qube but networking is dead (can ping the GW qube, can’t ping anything further…) and the installe script is stuck forever at “Completing setup oof Qubes Windows Tools…”

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Update : I could just [Ctrl]-C qvm-create-windows-qube and found out it was apparently hanging trying to get qvm-sync-appmenus, that doesn’t work as qubes-rpc seems dead on the Windows host.

I found out that the dead network was due to a closed qube firewall and could solve it by :
$ qvm-firewall my-vm-name reset

And then networking flies.

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I seem to have been able to fix my networking as well, but this doesn’t answer the question as to why the RPC is down on the Windows host in the first place.

Without RPC on the Windows host, I’m not able to do clipboard sharing with the Qube. I am assuming you had the same issue? Have you seen any solution?

Installing the latest QWT 4.1.67 from Releases · tabit-pro/qubes-windows-tools-cross · GitHub before deploying your VM fixes everything.

You’ll even be able to get working audio and USB in your Windows Qube.

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This solved the issue. We need to get the owner of the Windows Qubes Tools Github repo to update his instructions file, it cost me a large amount of wasted time, simply from using an outdated version of Tools.

Building the tools (or downloading the latest binary from the releases) gives you the latest version; I haven’t seen any mention of older versions in the instructions (you mentioned v4.1.3 in another post) - what part would you suggest to modify ? (I’m genuinely interested, I sometimes contribute instructions to the community windows docs + this wiki here and could add some text if needed).

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https://ftp.qubes-os.org/qubes-windows-tools/

This is misleading (and the source of my problem). The Github which gives instructions on setting up QWT links to that same FTp repository. But the EXE there is way out of date! Anyone who follows that guide will end up with problems like I did. The solution for me was: use the latest QWT release, NOT the one linked from the QWT setup tutorial on Github.

Thank you! The solution was to use the latest release from the repository you linked.

Would you mind spelling this out for me? I used the installation instructions found here and have the same problem as OP.
What must I do with the .rpm or .iso downloaded at your Releases link?

Why don’t you install it from the testing repo?

$ sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing --action=upgrade qubes-windows-tools

Thanks for the suggestion. I ran the command in dom0 term. Here’s what happened (nothing apparently):

sudo qubes-dom0-update --enablerepo=qubes-dom0-current-testing --action=upgrade qubes-windows-tools
Using sys-firewall as UpdateVM to download updates for Dom0; this may take some time...
Qubes OS Repository for Dom0                                                                                           2.9 MB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete!

I went ahead and tried qvm-create-windows-qube again anyway, with the same result as before (hangs on Completing setup… same as OP):

qvm-create-windows-qube -n sys-firewall -oyp firefox,notepadplusplus,office365proplus -i ltsc.iso -a win10x64-ltsc-eval.xml win10ltsc
[i] Starting windows-mgmt...
[i] Preparing Windows media for automatic installation...
[i] Starting creation of win10ltscr2
[i] Starting first part of Windows installation process...
[i] Starting second part of Windows installation process...
[i] Preparing Qubes Windows Tools for automatic installation...
[i] Installing Qubes Windows Tools...
[i] Completing setup of Qubes Windows Tools...

A windows qube is created that I can start. But it will show the windows logo for a while, then a plain blue screen with a loading icon and the words “Just a moment” - then completely crash and disappear.

Is there something I am missing? Can you suggest another way to install these latest releases?

This topic is solved and your issue seems to be different. Please open separate topic and poke us there so we could try to resolve it there, which would later help other users too.

I seem to have the same problem as the OP, and would really like to try this solution, but I am new at this and I don’t know what to do with the downloads found at your link. (The .rpm and/or .iso are what you are calling "the latest binary?) Could you please explain? Many thanks.

Could you please share how to do this? I can download the .rpm and .iso found under latest releases but having followed these instructions up till now, I do not know what to do to incorporate the latest release files. Much appreciated.

Replying here since I came across this from a google search as the issue happened to me on a brand new 4.1 install. This may not be entirely correct but it did work for me (I did not attempt the rpm install but assume that would be more of a correct solution).

From the releases page previously linked, download the latest ISO.

Now you need to get that ISO into dom0, I was able to use the qvm-run command similar to what was in the guide, make sure to change YOUR_QUBE_NAME to the Qube you downloaded the ISO into:

dom0

qvm-run --pass-io YOUR_QUBE_NAME 'cat /home/user/Downloads/qubes-windows-tools-4.1.67.1.iso' > ~/qubes-windows-tools.iso

Now we replace the existing ISO with the new one:

dom0

mv qubes-windows-tools.iso /usr/lib/qubes/qubes-windows-tools.iso

Try to create a new Windows Qube and it should breeze through now!

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Thank you cameron, it fixed my issue. I am using latest win10 iso and qubes version and it is still not working out of the box in march 2024!!!