Booting from VHD files and using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a Workstation

Harold van de Kamp — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 07:39:35 GMT

For my work I'm using a laptop that has several operating systems installed. Depending on the customer related work, e.g. office work, giving presentations and developing software, I'm booting one of these environments.

My multi-boot installation consists of several environments including:

Windows 7
Windows Server 2008 R2 with SharePoint 2007
Windows Server 2008 R2 with SharePoint 2010
Windows Server 2008 R2 with SharePoint 2007 and Dynamics CRM 4.0.

All the operating systems boot from a virtual hard disk instead of using virtualization by booting an operating system that hosts an other operating system.

I prefer using VHD files and booting from them because of several reason, e.g.:

The whole virtual memory is available for use on the work environment, instead of loosing virtual memory to an operating system that hosts a guest operation system using virtualization
Creating backups of a whole operating system is easily done by just backing up one .vhd file.
Normal hardware and drivers are used instead of emulated hardware and drivers.
By creating a clean installed base environment, you can quickly go back to that state or derive environments based on the base environment.

People often ask me:

How do you install operating systems on a VHD file and setup up a multi-boot environment?
How can you boot from a virtual hard disk?
What did you change to your Windows Server 2008 environment so that it looks like Windows 7?

You can get answers to all of these questions by visiting "How can I install Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 to a virtual hard disk (VHD) file?" about how to install an operating system on a VHD. Visit Win2008r2workstation.com which explains how to convert your Windows Server 2008 R2 server to a workstation.

Harold van de Kamp's Blog : VHD, SharePoint, Multi-boot, Virtualization, Virtual Hard Disk

Booting from VHD files and using Windows Server 2008 R2 as a Workstation