Most people reading this already know what this is so you may want to skip ahead a few paragraphs.  For those of you who are just know hearing about this read one.  And, although the title says Windows Server 2008 R2, this will be about Windows 7, but I believe it’s the same either way.

What the boot from VHD feature allows you to accomplish is to run a VHD directly on your hardware, without a host OS.  When doing this the VHD is still contained in one single file and when you shut down you can back it up or move it to another machine, although it’s just like moving any other hard drive and you may have driver compatibility issues.  In simple terms think about it for exactly what it is, a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD).

I also know there’s hundreds of sites about booting from VHD, but as many of them were based on early version of Windows 7, some of the information seems to be outdated and honestly I’m not sure if it worked at all.  I did find a site that helped me get this accomplished though, so I’m going to use that site so share what I did to get it all working.  If you want to stop reading here and just go to the site, it’s http://www.sevenforums.com.  Never heard of them before this, but it all seemed to work.

And lastly before I get to the meat and potatoes, why do you want to do this?  Because unless you own VMWare (and maybe even if you do) Virtual PC does not support x64, which is what is now required to run with SharePoint 2010.  And, I’ve tried but just can’t run Server 2008 and Hyper-V on my laptop without getting frustrated.

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Before you start make sure you have enough disk space (50GB for me) on a LOCAL hard drive (not USB) and a Windows 7 (RTM) DVD.

The first thing I did was to start with a Windows 7 OS, although I think this will work in Vista also.  Place your Windows 7 (I used Enterprise) DVD in your drive and reboot to the DVD.  Instead of repeating any more on this step, simply use the directions from http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2953-virtual-hard-drive-vhd-file-create-start-boot.html.  Scroll down to OPTION ONE.  Also note this entire site has many other ways to accomplish this and is the best resource I found for the information.

I now have dual boot capabilities, but there’s a couple things that bugged me.  1) Both boots are called Windows 7 2) VHD boot is the first and default.

I also want to move my VHD to another hard drive that gets plugged in when I remove my DVD drive.  This is an SSD and will let the VHD run much faster.  This is not a USB drive, but is considered internal and will work just fine.

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I booted back to my original Windows 7 OS for this part, but it may work on the VHD boot also.

To limit what you need to do on the command line, first run MSCONFIG.EXE and go to the boot tab.  I simply changed my default here which gave me one less command line to worry about.  Select your original, probably “Windows 7 (C:\Windows)” and select “Set as default”.

Next thing you’ll want to do is change the name of VHD boot (at least I did).  Instead of repeating everything, just use the directions from http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5110-dual-boot-change-os-name-windows-boot-manager.html.  They mention something called EasyBCD, but I have enough junk installed and figured it’d be easier to just type this stuff in.

When I did all this, my VHD boot was still the first on the list and I didn’t like that, even though it was no longer the default.  Using most of the information from the previous step  you can used this command to move it to the last boot option “bcdedit /displayorder {clsid} /addlast”.  If you need help with bcdedit you can do a “bcdedit /?”, or if you need help with a specific option use “bcdedit /[option] /?”.

Okay, the last step was moving my VHD.  Well moving it was the easy, I think we can all do that, but now that it’s on my “D Drive” I need to edit the boot info so it knows.  So, again using the command line I had to do the following two commands (yours will vary depending on your VHD locations):

“bcdedit /set {clsid} device vhd=[D:\vhd\win7.vhd” – because I moved it from c:\ to d:\vhd

Also, you’ll need to change the osdevice:

“bcdedit /set {clsid} osdevice vhd=[D:\vhd\win7.vhd”

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This is what I had to do and it should help you accomplish the same.  If it doesn’t work, I’m sorry, but I did try to help.  Again, check out http://www.sevenforums.com as I did learn how from them.

-Chris

Today is a good day.  Bits are here, can’t wait to play.

-Chris