[Feature] Use an already installed version of Windows as the VM

[Matakor]

Feature Description

I'm not sure how feasibly this could be done, but as I'm a windows user slowly transitioning to linux, I'm currently dual-booting windows and cachyos. While this porgram is awesome, I was left wondering if it'd be possible to just use my already installed windows 10 system as the VM here? That way I can call up my installed programs and such easier.

Use-Case

Easy access to a dual-boot windows system that is already installed.

Proposed Implementation

Easiest user-side view of this would be an option during install to try to detect a windows install on a drive and hook to that rather than downloading an entire ISO and using that.

Notice

• [x] I have checked the issue tracker and verified that this Feature Request has not been proposed before.
• [ ] I would like to help out implementing this feature

[VanillaCold]

I think one issue that could stem from this would be that your existing install would have drivers for your hardware running natively, but it would lack this hardware when booting from a VM.

i don't thiiink it'd cause huge issues from the getgo, but when GPU acceleration is implemented, I could see it causing some issues.

and on the flip side, booting into it properly instead of in Winboat could also cause issues in of itself if it tries to load the Winboat guest drivers.

(take this with a mountain of salt though i am not a dev on this project and i don't know much about the inner workings of windows-)

[BeauBastion]

Fwiw @VanillaCold I don't forsee drivers being a major issue from my own (albeit small) experience launching my Windows install as a VM via libvirt with virt-manager. The Windows install will need native drivers for best performance bare metal and maybe VirtIO drivers for better performance as a VM, but with my config there's been no major issues as it seems to just hook whichever devices (physical or virtual) it detects with both drivers installed. Ik this is all anecdotal but I wanted to chime in saying I think this is possible and I want it!

Another thought is it may be easier to create a way to install WinBoat to dedicated drive rather than virtual disk which could then be booted bare metal. Converting an existing install may be tougher if WinBoat needs certain modifications to Windows.