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Troubleshooting Windows VMs | Compute Engine Documentation

Troubleshooting Windows VMs

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Windows

This document describes the methods and tools available to resolve the following Compute Engine Windows virtual machine (VM) instance boot issues:

If you are experiencing issues connecting to Windows VMs, see Troubleshooting RDP.

For issues related to migrating to a third generation VM, see Windows Known issues.

Before you begin Using the Advanced Boot Options menu

If Windows doesn't start correctly, use the Advanced Boot Options menu to access safe mode or complete an online repair of the operating system. For more information, see Advanced startup options.

To enter the Advanced Boot Options menu on your Windows VM, complete the following procedure:

  1. Enable a display device for the VM if you haven't already.
  2. Connect to the VM's interactive serial console.

  3. Reset the VM by using one of the following methods:

    Console
    1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

      Go to VM instances

    2. Click the name of the VM you want to reset. The VM instance details page opens.

    3. Click the Reset button to reboot the VM.

    gcloud

    Use the gcloud compute instances reset command to reset the VM:

    gcloud compute instances reset VM_NAME --zone=ZONE --project=PROJECT_ID
    

    Replace the following:

    Command Prompt

    While connected to the interactive serial console, open a Command Prompt session and run the following command. For more information about opening a Command Prompt session, see Opening Command Prompt in Windows SAC.

    shutdown /r /t 0
    

    The Windows Boot Manager menu opens:

  4. Before the countdown expires, complete these steps:

    1. Ensure the interactive serial console is your active window.

    2. Press the Esc key on your keyboard.

    3. Press the number 8 key on your keyboard.

    The Advanced Boot Options menu opens:

  5. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to select an option, then open it by pressing the Enter key.

Note: If you are unable to see the Windows Boot Manager and need to enter the Advanced Boot Options menu, you will need to enable the Windows Boot Manager menu. Enabling the Windows Boot Manager menu

You can configure the Windows Boot Manager menu to display when a Windows VM instance is being rebooted. To enable the Windows boot manager menu, do the following:

Note: If you need to enable the Windows Boot Menu to perform a operating system repair and are unable to login to the VM, you might need to complete an offline repair instead.

Connect to the VM and open a Command Prompt with administrative access. If you cannot connect to the VM, add the subsequent steps as values to a windows-startup-script-cmd or windows-startup-script-ps1 startup script instead of running them directly

Command Prompt
  1. To enable the Windows Boot Manager menu at startup and add a 15 second timeout, run the following commands:

    bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes
    
    bcdedit /set {bootmgr} timeout 15
    
  2. To reboot the VM and display the Windows boot manager menu in the serial console using the following command:

    shutdown -r -t 0
    
PowerShell
  1. To enable the Windows Boot Manager menu at startup and add a 15 second timeout, run the following commands:

    bcdedit /set '{bootmgr}' displaybootmenu yes
    
    
    bcdedit /set '{bootmgr}' timeout 15
    
  2. To reboot the VM and display the Windows boot manager menu in the serial console using the following command:

    shutdown -r -t 0
    
Completing an offline repair

If your VM doesn't start correctly and using the advanced boot menu has failed to resolve the issue, try performing an offline repair using a functional Windows VM instance for recovery with a snapshot of the troubled VM's boot disk. Using a snapshot gives you a backup copy that can be modified without changing the state of the original VM.

  1. Create a snapshot of the troubled VM's boot disk.

  2. Create a disk using that snapshot.

  3. Create a VM with an additional non-boot disk, using the newly created disk. Your recovery VM should meet these criteria:

    Caution: Ensure that the boot disk image of the recovery VM differs from the boot disk that is being repaired; failure to do so may result in duplicate disk or partition GUID and unpredictable results as confirmed by Microsoft.
  4. You can now use Windows tools and utilities to attempt an offline repair of the additional attached disk. Refer to the following documentation for details about completing an offline repair of your VM:

  5. If the offline repair has completed successfully, update the boot disk of the troubled VM to be the newly repaired boot disk.

  6. Optional: Delete the additional resources after you no longer need them:

Troubleshooting blue screen errors

The Windows operating system may experience a stop code or blue screen error, also know as a Blue Screen of Death. If a VM experiences a blue screen error, the VM stops running and needs to perform a restart before resuming normal operations.

If you believe a blue screen error may have occurred, confirm this by identifying presence of errors using one or more of the following methods:

Serial port 1 Note: Google provided Windows public images version 20191112 and later contain the google-compute-engine-driver-pvpanic driver which automatically sends kernel panic information to the serial port. If it is not installed on your instance, install the driver.
  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

    Go to VM instances

  2. Click the name of the VM you want to view logs for. The VM instance details page opens.

  3. Under Logs, click Serial port 1.

  4. A stack trace dump similar to the following confirms a blue screen error:

    ntoskrnl.exe [0xFFFFF802C9606000, 0xFFFFF802C9E23000]
    netbios.sys [0xFFFFF80E98430000, 0xFFFFF80E98442000]
    volmgr.sys [0xFFFFF80E97E40000, 0xFFFFF80E97E58000]
    NTFS.sys [0xFFFFF80E98060000, 0xFFFFF80E98293000]
    crashdmp.sys [0xFFFFF80E986C0000, 0xFFFFF80E986D9000]
    pvpanic.sys [0xFFFFF80E99030000, 0xFFFFF80E9903C000]
    myfault.sys [0xFFFFF80E9A570000, 0xFFFFF80E9A578000]
    Dumping stack trace:
    0xFFFFF80E990317C7 (pvpanic.sys+0x17C7)
    0xFFFFF80E990316D3 (pvpanic.sys+0x16D3)
    0xFFFFF802C97D9681 (ntoskrnl.exe+0x1D3681)
    0xFFFFF802C97D8A1F (ntoskrnl.exe+0x1D2A1F)
    0xFFFFF802C97633F4 (ntoskrnl.exe+0x15D3F4)
    0xFFFFF802C9773329 (ntoskrnl.exe+0x16D329)
    0xFFFFF802C976F152 (ntoskrnl.exe+0x169152)
    0xFFFFF80E9A572794 (myfault.sys+0x2794)
    Current Process: notmyfault64.e
    
Note: Serial logs are kept as long as the instance is in the RUNNING life cycle state, unless you have serial logging enable. For more information, see Viewing serial port output. Serial port 2 Note: Google provided Windows public images version 20191112 and later contain the google-compute-engine-driver-pvpanic driver which automatically sends kernel panic information to the serial port. If it is not installed on your instance, install the driver.
  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the VM instances page.

    Go to VM instances

  2. Click the name of the VM you want to view logs for. The VM instance details page opens.

  3. Under Logs, expand More, then click Serial port 2 (console).

  4. Review the serial port of the instance, and look for this output similar to the following:

    !SAC>
    Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.
    If you call a support person, give them this info:
    UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
    
    myfault.sys
    
    0x0000000000000008
    0xFFFFC6812AB94F70
    0xFFFFC6812E38EFF0
    0xFFFFF80E9A572794
    
    We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you.
    100% complete
    
Note: Serial logs are kept as long as the instance is in the RUNNING life cycle state, unless you have serial logging enable. For more information, see Viewing serial port output. Command Prompt
  1. Connect to the instance and open a Command Prompt with administrative access.

  2. To display the most recent blue screen event, run the following command:

    wevtutil qe System "/q:*[System [(EventID=1001)]]" /rd:True /c:1 /f:Text
    
  3. Review the output, which looks similar to the following:

    Event[0]:
      Log Name: System
      Source: Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorReporting
      Date: 2021-04-14T08:53:52.933
      Event ID: 1001
      Task: N/A
      Level: Error
      Opcode: N/A
      Keyword: Classic
      User: N/A
      User Name: N/A
      Computer: WINDOWS
      Description:
    The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x1000007f (0x
    0000000000000008, 0xffffc6812ab94f70, 0xffffc6812e38eff0, 0xfffff80e9a572794
    ). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\Minidump\041421-12656-01.dmp. Report Id:
    a5710c98-a577-4b3e-a3c9-2fc0aa4e5d83.
    

For information about customizing wetutil queries, see wevtutil.

Disk Snapshot

If the VM is no longer operational, or the other methods have proven unsuccessful. You can inspect the boot disk of the suspected blue screen VM with a secondary VM. Using a snapshot gives you a backup copy that can be modified without changing the state of the original VM.

  1. Create a snapshot of the suspected blue screen VM's boot disk.

  2. Create a disk using that snapshot.

  3. Create a VM with an additional non-boot disk , using the newly created disk of the suspected VM. Your recovery VM should meet these criteria:

    Caution: Ensure that the boot disk image of the recovery VM differs from the boot disk that is being repaired; failure to do so may result in duplicate disk or partition GUID and unpredictable results as confirmed by Microsoft.
  4. Browse the additional disk and locate for the following files:

    %SystemRoot%\Memory.dmp
    %SystemRoot%\Minidump\DATE-TIME-NUM.dmp
    

    The date and time of the file can help you correlate if the suspected instance experienced a blue screen error. These files can also be used for analysis and diagnosis.

  5. Optional: Delete the additional resources after you no longer need them:

After you obtain the blue screen error information and optionally obtained access to the memory dump file, follow the diagnostic steps and recommendations as provided by Microsoft:

Licensing issues

Windows operating systems renew their licenses every seven days by connecting to the Key Management Service (KMS) server. If you receive messages about license expiration or any other issues related to licenses on your Windows VMs, do the following:

  1. Confirm that your Windows VM's VPC network is configured to allow communication with KMS.

  2. Confirm that the Windows Firewall permits outbound connections to the KMS server:

    For more information about configuring Windows Advanced Firewall rules, see Create an Outbound Port Rule.

  3. Check that the connection to the KMS server is successful by running the following command in Cloud Shell:

    gcloud network-management connectivity-tests create test-access-to-gcp-kms \
        --source-ip-address=WINDOWS_VM_IP_ADDRESS \
        --destination-ip-address=35.190.247.13 \
        --destination-port=1688 \
        --protocol=TCP
    

    As shown in the following image, you should see Next hop: Internet gateway listed in the Static route field of the Connectivity Test result card. If you see a different result, then the Windows activation will fail. . The result should show a status of Reachability and a Successful result.

  4. Run the following commands to confirm the current state of your license, set the server IP address of the KMS and force an activation:

    cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /dlv
    
    cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /skms 35.190.247.13:1688
    
    cscript \windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato
    
Troubleshooting Interactive Serial Console
  1. Ensure that you meet the prerequsiste to access serial console.

  2. Enable Emergency Management Services. If EMS is turned off, the serial console won't take any keyboard inputs but present only a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

    Command Prompt
    1. Connect to the VM using RDP and open Command Prompt as an Administrator. If you cannot RDP, add the subsequent steps as values to the windows-startup-script-cmd startup key.

    2. Set the global EMS redirection settings to use COM2, a baud rate of 115200, and enable EMS.

      bcdedit /emssettings EMSPORT:2 EMSBAUDRATE:115200
      bcdedit /ems on
      
    3. Reboot the VM to apply the updated configuration. If you're using a metadata script don't add the shutdown command.

      shutdown -r -t 0
      
    PowerShell
    1. Connect through RDP and open Powershell as Administrator. If you cannot RDP, add the subsequent steps as values to the windows-startup-script-ps1 startup key.

    2. Set the global EMS redirection settings to use COM2, a baud rate of 115200, and enable EMS.

      bcdedit /emssettings EMSPORT:2 EMSBAUDRATE:115200
      bcdedit /ems on
      
    3. Reboot the VM to apply the updated configuration. If you're using a metadata script don't add the shutdown command.

      shutdown -r -t 0
      
What's next

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. For details, see the Google Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC.

[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Hard to understand","hardToUnderstand","thumb-down"],["Incorrect information or sample code","incorrectInformationOrSampleCode","thumb-down"],["Missing the information/samples I need","missingTheInformationSamplesINeed","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],["Last updated 2025-08-07 UTC."],[[["This document provides troubleshooting methods for common boot issues in Compute Engine Windows virtual machines (VMs), including inability to connect via RDP, no login screen, and blue screen errors."],["If a Windows VM doesn't start correctly, the Advanced Boot Options menu can be accessed through the interactive serial console to use safe mode or complete online repair."],["Offline repair is a method that involves creating a snapshot of the troubled VM's boot disk, creating a disk using that snapshot, and attaching it to a recovery VM for repair, which is necessary when online methods fail."],["Blue screen errors can be identified through serial port logs, command prompt event logs, or by examining disk snapshots on a separate VM for dump files."],["Windows license issues can be resolved by ensuring network connectivity with the Key Management Service (KMS) server and using specific commands to check, set, and activate the license."]]],[]]


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