Mike
22-10-2009, 12:54 AM
Windows 7 VHD otherwise known as Windows 7 Virtual Hard Disc
Availability
This is a feature available only in the Ultimate & Enterprise editions of Windows 7 (which does include the Release Candidate which is seen as Ultimate).
This is not available in the Starter/Basic/Home Premium/Professional editions of Windows 7.
What it does/is
Allows for the creation of virtual hard disc drives. These drives appear in disc management as hard discs and can have different operating systems installed which can be added into the boot manager so you can boot into them.
The drives are actually files on you main hard disc which are treated as entire discs (much in the same way VirtualPC or VirtualBox deals with hard drives)
How to create a VHD
- Click START
- Right-click COMPUTER
- Click MANAGE
- Click DISK MANAGEMENT and wait for it to load
- Right-click DISK MANAGMENT and you'll see an option for CREATE VHD
- Click on that
- A wizard will start
- Choose where you would like the "hard disc" file to be stored. This can be on any local actual hard disc. Also you give a name for the file as well.
- On the same page you can enter the size of the hard disc (select MB, GB, or TB) and enter a value (please keep in mind that the hard disc will need to be quite large if you intend to install another OS: 20GB for Windows Vista for instance)
- Again, on the same page you can decide if the "hard disc" file is going to be fixed or dynamic. I would suggest dynamic as the file will then only be as large as the data stored. So in the above example if I chose 20Gb, put dynamic, and stored 5GB of data then the "hard disc" file would be about 5GB not 20GB. However if I selected fixed it will be 20GB no matter what (I suspect this would enable slightly faster access).
- Click OK
- The disc will now be created and you'll now see a new disc within disc management
- The disc will need initialising so locate the disc within disc management
- Right-click where it says
Disc x
Unknown
xxGB
and click INITIALISE and then click OK
Now you can partition the drive as you normally would (right click on it and select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME, etc)
Somethig further to note: you can copy the VHD 'disc' files you've created between PCs and, instead of selecting CREATE VHD as above, you can select ATTACH VHD and point it to the copied file(s).
To delete a virtual disc go into disc management as above, locate the disc in question, right click where it says
Disc x
Basic
xxGB
Onlne
and click DETACH VHD
You will be offered the opportunity to delete the file. If can do this if you wish or you can keep the file and maybe copy it to another PC.
Availability
This is a feature available only in the Ultimate & Enterprise editions of Windows 7 (which does include the Release Candidate which is seen as Ultimate).
This is not available in the Starter/Basic/Home Premium/Professional editions of Windows 7.
What it does/is
Allows for the creation of virtual hard disc drives. These drives appear in disc management as hard discs and can have different operating systems installed which can be added into the boot manager so you can boot into them.
The drives are actually files on you main hard disc which are treated as entire discs (much in the same way VirtualPC or VirtualBox deals with hard drives)
How to create a VHD
- Click START
- Right-click COMPUTER
- Click MANAGE
- Click DISK MANAGEMENT and wait for it to load
- Right-click DISK MANAGMENT and you'll see an option for CREATE VHD
- Click on that
- A wizard will start
- Choose where you would like the "hard disc" file to be stored. This can be on any local actual hard disc. Also you give a name for the file as well.
- On the same page you can enter the size of the hard disc (select MB, GB, or TB) and enter a value (please keep in mind that the hard disc will need to be quite large if you intend to install another OS: 20GB for Windows Vista for instance)
- Again, on the same page you can decide if the "hard disc" file is going to be fixed or dynamic. I would suggest dynamic as the file will then only be as large as the data stored. So in the above example if I chose 20Gb, put dynamic, and stored 5GB of data then the "hard disc" file would be about 5GB not 20GB. However if I selected fixed it will be 20GB no matter what (I suspect this would enable slightly faster access).
- Click OK
- The disc will now be created and you'll now see a new disc within disc management
- The disc will need initialising so locate the disc within disc management
- Right-click where it says
Disc x
Unknown
xxGB
and click INITIALISE and then click OK
Now you can partition the drive as you normally would (right click on it and select NEW SIMPLE VOLUME, etc)
Somethig further to note: you can copy the VHD 'disc' files you've created between PCs and, instead of selecting CREATE VHD as above, you can select ATTACH VHD and point it to the copied file(s).
To delete a virtual disc go into disc management as above, locate the disc in question, right click where it says
Disc x
Basic
xxGB
Onlne
and click DETACH VHD
You will be offered the opportunity to delete the file. If can do this if you wish or you can keep the file and maybe copy it to another PC.