How do I access the F8 Bootmenu while booting a Windows 2008R2 KVM Guest VM?

Question

Stupid question but this doesn't work, seems like it should. Is there a trick to access a booting Guest VM's bootmenu using KVM? I'm running the VM using virt-manager 0.8.7. KVM server is a CentOS 6.3 box running qemu-kvm-0.12.1.2-2.295.el6_3.8.x86_64. Guest is Windows 2008R2.

I added this to the Guest VM's XML:

% virsh edit DR-01
...
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
    <bootmenu enable='yes'/>
  </os>

Doesn't give me the ability to hit the F8 key. Any ideas how to accomplish this?

Answer 1

if you enable the boot menu in VM boot options, it will provide an extra delay, so you can refocus.

Answer 2

The trick seems to be that you have to put the guest's virt-manager session in fullscreen mode. Here are the steps that I took to get this working:

1. Put guest in fullscreen mode

          

2. Start the Guest VM

                                   

3. Focus the VM immediately once it starts up by clicking inside its window w/ mouse

4. Start hitting the F8 key

5. Now you'll see the Guest VM's bootmenu

EDIT #1

If you're still having issue as I said in the question originally and as @dyasny mentioned in his answer, try giving yourself more time during boot up of the guest VM by adding the following to the guest's domain XML via the virsh command:

% virsh edit DR-01
...
<os>
  <type arch='x86_64' machine='rhel5.4.0'>hvm</type>
  <boot dev='hd'/>
  <bootmenu enable='yes'/>
</os>