I heard that you could boot Windows 7 from a VHD file. now how in the hell do i configure the beta OS to do that. its a step up from virtual machine in a way. i also think virtual machine should just be built into Windows 7... and have all out VHDs listed in "My Computer". then when we right click on them we get an option to change the virtual machine settings.... don't you think that sounds like a much better way to handle VHDs than Virtual PC 2007?

Hi Steven,please check the Blog from the Canadian IT Professionals Team from Microsoft at this websiteon how to configure vhd-boot.Peter Forster, MVP Virtual Machine, Austria

thanks for the quick response. in the guys blog it says that you can only boot from Windows 7 VHDs. I was planning to boot from an older one. at least when i heard it on a microsoft video, they did not really mention that it was limited to just Windows 7 VHDs. the canadian guy also says to start with a new VHD, but the one i have is at least two years old. do you think it would work? besides it is an image created from an older PC that i used to have. I have the VHD setup like this because of the hardware APIs that are on it and whatnot. in virtual machine you can't install software requiring hardware drivers.... so hopefully booting from the VHD in windows 7 will create new opertunities. and thanks for the help.

Hi Steven,I've not tried it myself but I heard it that it should work, but not sure for your VHD. The only way to find this out is trying it :-)Peter Forster, MVP Virtual Machine, Austria

well, i'll tell you how it goes. i have a few PC with Windows beta on them. some with the public version and my main one with the MS connect version, so results may vary.... I may lso try it with my XP VM from virtual PC as well. i have photoshop CS2on there as well as a few older applications. that application has issues with vista.

well, the windows 2000 and Windows XP VHDs work on some of my Windows 7 beta PCs. just did not test it on my main PC with the MS connect key on it yet. i'll be testing the VHD boot feature on that PC later.I have another question about the VHD feature. does it support hardware virtualization like Virtual PC 2007 does? it would be usefull... well hey, its a hard drive running on top of another hard drive. it just may be needed. and will normal virtialization processor technologies be supported and not just the hardware-assisted virtualization technologies?

The Windows 7 Beta is used to help Microsoft engineers test various hardware configurations, common software, and to find and track compatibility issues. Complex scenarios, unique environments, non-standard technologies, or non-standard features are not supported in this forum at this time. Additional information can be found in this thread.With that being said, I'm excited about boot from .VHD. And here is what I did to get it working on my machine:Installed Windows 7 as normal... Then from command prompt:>diskpart>create vdisk file=c:\win7.vhd type=fixed maximum=20000Restart the machine and boot from with Windows 7 DVDOnce the installation GUI is started press shift+f10 and a command prompt will appear>diskpart>select vdisk file=d:\win7.vhd (note: the drive letter may have changed if you original Windows 7 install created the 200 meg bitlocker partition)>attach vdiskNow as you run through the installation you will now see the virtual disk as option to install Windows 7 on.You can then use bcdedit to clean up/distinguish which install is which.Also, pay attention the article Peter Forster linked to as it has some important details.Joe

i just wish microsoft would make a simple way to boot from VHDs instead of having to use the comand prompt to setup the whole thing to add it to the list. you should just be able to add it to the list in a much easier way like "my computer" or "msconfig" or something like that.

What i realy realy want is toboot nativ from a vhd with a Linux distribution on it. That would make the vhd-boot awesome for me and i could kill all my linux partitions for the rest of my life. Any idea how it could be possible?