Have you seen “Native VHD support” together with a Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 review? But what does this mean?
First: You are able to create and mount VHD files directly in Windows Disk Management or diskpart.exe without the need to install any other application. (If you haven’t seen it you are also able to burn ISO file natively, just double click and Burn)
Look in File Explorer and you have a new drive where you can read/write files/folders.
Second: You can install and boot Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 directly from a VHD file. Virtual PC that’s perfect to try applications and operating systems but what if you want to try your hardware/drivers or really try how fast it really is without repartition your hard drive!
First copy Windows 7/2008 R2 source to a bootable USB key (Note! you have to boot with Windows PE 3.0 shipped with Window 7, WinPE 2.x will not work)
Restart your computer, start the installation and swap to command prompt by pressing SHIFT+F10
diskpart
create vdisk file=”C:\Vdisk\Win7.vhd” Maximum=15000 Type=Fixed
select vdisk file=”C:\Vdisk\Win7.vhd”
attach vdisk
exit
exit
Continue with a custom installation and choose the new created Virtual Disk
To get more information about creating VHD files with diskpart just write “help create vdisk”
That was easy!
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