How to extend / increase a Windows Partition on KVM QEMU VM

We have a Windows 7 VM running on Ubuntu KVM. I needed to give the Windows 7 machine more disk space. This turns out to be really easy (when you know how).

Step 1 – Shutdown the VM

virsh shutdown hostname

Step 2 – Increase the qcow2 image
Find the qcow2 file of the VM and take a backup (just in case).

cp hostname.qcow2 hostname.qcow2.backup
qemu-img resize hostname.qcow2 +100GB

Step 3 – Start the VM
Now start the VM.

virsh start hostname

Step 4 – Extend the partition in Window
Windows has a really good partition management utility built into it. Search for “disk management”

window_7_vm_disk_resizing

Then select the partition, right click and choose extend partition. You should then follow the simple steps and you are done.

Let me know if you have any improvements to this.

How to change the banner image in Install4J

I am just making an installer for Windows, Mac and Linux using install4j. However, it isn’t clear from the docs how to change the banner image on the left hand side.

To set it on the Welcome screen, you need to go to Installer -> Welcome and select the “Images For Banner” property,

To change it on the Finish screen, you need to go to installer -> Finish and select the “Image for Banner” property.