VHDs : Do I understand this right?

veritas_libertas

So the way I understand it the greatest benefit of VHD files is the following:

You can use them to mount images
You can use them for dual booting

Am I understanding this right???

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gosh1976

veritas_libertas wrote: »

So the way I understand it the greatest benefit of VHD files is the following:

You can use them to mount images

You can use them for dual booting

Am I understanding this right???

I was half watching a video tonight and heard something about making a .vhd bootable and I remember thinking so how does that work. As far as mounting the image one of the benefits is say you have a back up that is a .vhd and you want to pull just one file from it. you can mount the and get just that one file. that's how I understand it anyway. Very interested in what others have to say about this.

MentholMoose

1. Technically a VHD is an image, so you mount the VHD.
2. This is a benefit since VHDs can simplify dual/multi booting.

VHD has become a versatile format. Instead of imaging a hard drive (a time and disk consuming process), then transferring that image file, you could simply transfer the VHD. Microsoft's deployment tools support VHD now, so you can deploy VHDs just as you would "dedicated" image formats such as WIM. Other Microsoft tools, such as diskmgmt.msc and diskpart.exe, natively support VHD. VHDs can be used by a variety virtualization platforms (Hyper-V, Virtual Server/PC, and XenServer). VHD is also supported in products from other vendors, such as Provisioning Services from Citrix.

Since VHDs were designed for virtualization, being able to boot from VHD brings to physical systems some of the benefits and flexibility previously unique to virtualization. For example, you can have snapshot-like functionality since you can boot from differencing VHDs. Also you can use dynamically expanding VHDs, so for example if you only have a 500GB HDD right now, but plan to add another in the near future, you can create a 1TB VHD that initially fits on that 500GB drive and not worry about extending the partition and filesystem (just don't fill it up!

). Another possible benefit is being able to compact VHDs.

Hyper-Me

In addition to everything that MentholMoose said, I find VHDs extremely handy for archiving old machines. Wether you performed a P2V and are now taking it out of production or if you simply capture a machine into an offline VHD and store it, it makes for a pretty effective archive method.

Later on if you need something, just plug the external USB its on into a Windows 7 or 2008 R2 machine, mount the VHD, profit.

veritas_libertas

Do you have to make a WIM file and then convert it to a VHD?

MentholMoose

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Do you have to make a WIM file and then convert it to a VHD?

You can, e.g. use imagex to apply a WIM to a VHD. But there are tools to capture directly to VHD, such as:
Disk2vhd

Also, since you can attach a VHD as though it was a physical drive, you can use 3rd party disk cloning tools (Drive Snapshot comes to mind).

veritas_libertas

Thanks for the help guys! This clears up things for me on VHDs! I think they are very neat option from Microsoft

gosh1976

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Thanks for the help guys! This clears up things for me on VHDs! I think they are very neat option from Microsoft

I'm about to sit down and watch this video. Thought you might appreciate the link. How Do I: Windows 7 VHD Boot Demonstration?

veritas_libertas

Thanks!

Hyper-Me

I just dual booted my Windows 7 work laptop with Server 2008 R2. I put the server in a VHD. installed AD, Hyper-V and SCVMM on it and i'm using it for P2V's of SBS boxes.

I should have video taped it.

staggerlee

veritas_libertas wrote: »

You can use them for dual booting

Am I understanding this right???

Just to add a question..

Is it also true that the VHD can only be windows 7 or server 2008? if you want to use it for duel booting???

Hyper-Me

staggerlee wrote: »

Just to add a question..

Is it also true that the VHD can only be windows 7 or server 2008? if you want to use it for duel booting???

Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate and Server 2008 R2 are the only OS' that can native boot out of a VHD.

staggerlee

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate and Server 2008 R2 are the only OS' that can native boot out of a VHD.

thanks

Cutenoob

VHD's are neat. It came to me one day while driving: It's JUST A FILE. Instead of a hard drive, you have a FILE that does everything. Which is cool - with our ever-increasing mobile storage, you now have "computers" you can keep on your usb sticks.